


perfect machine

by 23notecanon (reincarnivore)



Series: you broke time [5]
Category: Kingdom Hearts
Genre: Canon Divergence, Emotions, M/M, Softness, a step away from canon, mutual suffering, taking the plot of ddd out back and putting it in its fucking place, the rest of new orgXIII are here but they have minor roles so i dont want to clog the character tags
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-30
Updated: 2020-04-27
Packaged: 2021-02-27 12:28:44
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 8
Words: 33,458
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22027090
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/reincarnivore/pseuds/23notecanon
Summary: xemnas is touch starved and ansem is more than willing to deal with this, but it takes some time to tame down a feral cat. two boys who used to be at the top of the ladder now suffer a rung or two down, just seeing how long they can survive through the river of predestined fate. we make the mistake of actually getting to know our 'comrades', and that makes it harder to lead them down the path to death.a plot revisal between the end of kh2 and over the course of kh3, focusing on xemnas and ansem, and also more gay than the canon will ever give me. sometimes, saix and xion are(platonically) chilling too. how are there not two tags for the different xehanorts.
Relationships: Ansem Seeker of Darkness | Xehanort's Heartless/Xemnas
Series: you broke time [5]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1529372
Comments: 25
Kudos: 54





	1. Chapter 1

As he raises his palms, balling hands into fists, to his nearly destroyed Kingdom Hearts, Xemnas still can’t, refuses to find that bleed of emotion flow through him- but he remembers well enough fury to display his displeasure ‘properly’. A momentary lapse in judgment wherein he’d, once again, deigned to let his underlings ‘clean up’ the rabble- and  _ again _ they had failed him, over and  _ over _ . Now his old mentor has ‘succeeded’ in his exalted task, in a bid to capture Xemnas’ creation, but he’s just… blown a damn hole in it, and perhaps himself. The hearts that float gently to the ground grow into piles of shadows, his dusks pawing uselessly at the air for a taste of what they can not hope to hold in their current forms.

Not that getting them hearts was ever the plan.

No, Kingdom Hearts- it was to rid them of hearts. Rid them all of that parasitic emotion that skewed senses and brought them untold suffering. Recreate the world with _ nothing _ , empty, void and  _ perfect _ .

Brought to ruin now, however. And soon, the keyblade wielder, or should he say ‘wielders’, as Sora spawned two new from thin air, coming to dispose of him as well, if he doesn’t think of something to do to stop them. If only finding them had been so easy before- but then again, it isn’t as if he managed to keep Roxas or Xion long.

Atop the highest platform of his castle, Xemnas waits for his ruin to arrive, to give them one last run for their money, staring vacantly up at his shattered Kingdom Hearts. Something itches at the back of his mind though- the hand of fate turning time predestined. He was never ‘meant’, never _ fated _ to win, but did that mean he was hopeless to try? No matter how it ends now, though, he will face it without the thoughts of long-forgotten memories that seek to twist his destiny to their will.

Something feels... off, still- and more than just his imminent failure. Thinking on his spattered memories from his ‘past’ life, or lives- time folds, splintering the air around him. Sharply, Xemnas turns to face this creature deigning to bend time in his presence but finds himself looking in a mirror, albeit a.. shorter, mirror. Younger mirror, Xemnas presumes. His expression falls bemused, and they hold a long staring contest as the younger Xehanort looks up towards the shattered heart in the sky before returning his gaze to Xemnas, a smile creeping across his face.

Low in his throat and impatient to interlopers, regardless to the destined nature of their arrival or the fact they’re likely himself from another time, “And  _ who _ are you?”

“You, of course,” his seemingly younger self presses a hand to his chest, eyes lidding as he steps forward. In his grasp, Xemnas notices, a keyblade. He did remember faintly once being able to wield one, but doesn’t recall it looking quite like that? Amber eyes look back to his destroyed Kingdom Hearts, and again to his other approaching self with disdain. Don’t you judge me, I completely have this under control.

“And what do you want from me?”

“To pick you up,” the young Xehanort’s expression warps to the utmost distaste, mocking, “Since you seem to have  _ failed _ your little _ interlude _ .”

Dryly, Xemnas half-lids to stare back at his apparent other, “You are so sure of that, then.” Sure, it’s looking a little… rough… but he’s made it before.. he could make it again. He would do it all again simply out of spite for his younger self and pre-destination.

“If you must know, I’ve seen the future- and I  _ know _ what happens to you when I don’t intervene here and now.”

“In your timeline, perhaps. Each splitting river finds itself elsewhere-“

Xehanort interrupts, “No, unfortunately, I know well,  _ every time _ , how this ends. You should feel fortunate! Out of all of ‘you’,” he points with a finger, “ _ you _ get to survive to the future.” Stepping forward, he pulls his keyblade towards, but Xemnas does not step back, unwilling to be intimidated. He doesn’t have the emotion to be so.

Holding his ground, Xemnas sparks with crimson and thorned energy, though he wasn’t terribly interested in wasting his strength on fighting his apparent ‘self’ when Sora was likely walking up the stairs with his entourage… Before he has much more time to mull over his options, however, a keyblade tip is pressed to his chest, prompting Xemnas a low, dry laugh, reaching a hand down to grip the offending end, “And  _ what heart _ do you think to remove from me and control?”

“This one.”

Pain.  _ What is this _ \- in shock, Xemnas looks down to his chest as something _ is _ , in fact,  _ removed- _ but it could hardly be considered a ‘heart’, more like a dwindling, pale light that shrinks and sputters pitifully when it is away from the casing of its body and will. Then, the world falls out from under him.

A heart can travel time, if it has somewhere to land, but to Xehanort’s distaste, Xemnas’ ‘heart’ nearly doesn’t survive the travel forwards. Thankfully enough, his spatter of light clings to existence from sheer will alone, and when Xehanort finds himself in their laboratory from  _ this _ timeline’s Xemnas, he immediately jams the thing into a half-discarded replica before it can disintegrate. Again, at first it seems like Xemnas isn’t interested in taking refuge in this  _ fake husk _ of a body, but it’s already preprogrammed to his memory, so, alas, his piecework heart connects, and the hologram overtakes it, standing him there in a half-zipped black coat.

It’s nowhere near _ comfortable _ , however, and he stands there in cold silence, staring at the floor, swallowing roughly and audibly grumbling his distress. Ten minutes ago(to his frame of reference, at least), he had nearly completed his personal task of destroying all hearts and leaving the universe an empty place of nothing. Now  _ he’s _ the puppet- to a child of himself, from memories he does not recall. Great. 

“Stay here,” and Xehanort disappears from reality once more, to grab someone else, Xemnas assumes. There’s one more replica beside him, around his size as well.

Hoarsely, unused to the Replica body, “Where would I go,” he speaks to the empty air. Equally unfamiliar with his infantile heart he was unaware he was bound to, he skims through the programmed memories of  _ this _ timeline’s Xemnas, flinching when things don’t quite match up. And why would they? This was an entirely different timeline. He watches the failure of himself after the destruction of his Kingdom Hearts, despite all his best efforts. Bested by some nothing child and his closest friend after getting so incredibly close to victory. So, suppose he was ‘saved’, from destruction.

But does he feel  _ thankful _ his ‘younger’ self ‘saved’ him from this demise?

Or is he just annoyed he is now fully a pawn of his unknown past’s completed self?

Moments later, Xehanort reappears with another, and Ansem floats in barely contained rage, his own existence threatening to sputter away in wisps of darkness, glitching out of reality- but he’s at least holding a humanoid form, rather than Xemnas’ little light. The containment of his rage is from pain, however, as he had equally just been snatched from his timeline near moments before his demise- even closer than Xemnas had, interrupted mere moments before he’d opened the door to light and nearly evaporated himself from a very critical error in judgment. It left a very confused Sora and crew behind. “A body for you, sir,” their younger self points to the remaining replica, and begrudgingly, Ansem fuses himself to it for the sake of remaining, well, _ alive _ . 

Xemnas finds himself staring- it’s not as if he’d never seen ‘his’ heartless before, having watched some moments of his fight with Sora, seen his shadowed, hollow form occasionally wiggling through the broken halls of Hollow Bastion, but it’s still a strange sight. Completely cognizant and remaining of his ‘human’ form despite being a Heartless, though he’d apparently required to steal humanity to retain the form, as he appeared to be struggling to exist much the same as Xemnas had before without Riku’s form to pull from. Accepting the Replica body readily, however, Ansem is back on his feet quicker than his wayward body, perusing the implanted memories much like his other and unconsciously sneering when he sees his fate in Castle Oblivion. Much like Xemnas had been staring earlier, Ansem returns the glance, looking him head to toe and squinting when he sees the pain he’s in. With how he understands time travel- no, it wouldn’t be comfortable to one veritably without a heart to migrate time.

Xemnas still isn’t completely sure he’s agreeing to this situation, honestly, but when he looks around for his youngest self, he’s vacated the space, through the door this time, leaving the two new replicas in their momentary stupor. Ansem watches in near concern when Xemnas heaves in strain despite his new body.

“Will you live?” He questions, tilting his head over as he looks with cold, discerning amber eyes. Ansem knows well that he comprehends the situation greater than his old body will, with a somewhat comprehensible knowledge of Xehanort’s memories. He’s not sure Xemnas retained anything from that time besides blind feeling, but Ansem knew fate was coming.

Not interested in his concern, Xemnas scoffs, shaking out his head before gathering his strength to stand uprightly despite the still lingering pain and strain; he absolutely rumbles, “That is none of your concern.”

“It somewhat is,” he hums, nearly amused, but the heartless shrugs, gaze flicking to the laboratory door when it reopens.

Standing in the doorway, his youngest self, alongside a much, much older one. It perks Xemnas’ barely familiarly, enough he can bridge the gaps to say this is a much _ older _ piece of himself. It hits Ansem much more closely, immediately knowing this ‘old’ Xehanort, though equally, Ansem knows he’s actually out-aging him. However, Ansem was ‘reset’ at a given point, so while he might have a numbered age that outweighs this Master Xehanort, his ‘older’ self holds the full berth of his experience and knowledge, and Ansem doesn’t hold much hope to out-witting or out-fighting him. At least, not right now.

Xemnas feels objectified enough to  _ try _ , however. 

The oldest Xehanort isn’t exactly  _ expecting _ a fight from a fragmented piece of himself, but he also isn’t surprised to receive it. In all technicality, this shard is more parts a stolen and reformatted Terra than he is purely Xehanort, but from his research, Xehanort knows despite his amnesia, Xemnas did make an unconscious attempt to obtain him 13 vessels. Of course, he didn’t  _ follow through _ with his task, and set to build his own, poorly constructed Kingdom Hearts, but alas. Xemnas did  _ try. _

He catches Xemnas with an adept hand as he blasts forwards, the younger Xehanort removing himself from the situation but staying nearby in the off chance he needs to intervene and assist. Alternatively, it would be a good way to see if his eldest was still in fighting form- and despite the hunched posture and relative holding of his punches, he makes short work of his newly inexperienced, weak from time travel adversary. Not to not receive a few choice laser burns and a kick to the knee, but Xemnas feels his wrist gripped in a momentary lack of focus from his physical, unwieldy body; he’s twisted around in the air, and gripped fiercely by the back of his neck. Not entirely sure where that was going, Xemnas freezes; at first, from confusion, and then literally, when the shock of a blizzaga channels itself through his body, freezing him solid before Xehanort tosses him at Ansem’s feet with a dull thunk and a hiss of pain. This occurs in near less than a minute.

“And you, Heartless?” He looks up to the other half, who balks immediately, holding up defensive hands and ducking head.  _ Not now, _ at least. “Good.” Approaching from behind, it doesn’t take long for Xemnas to break out of his frozen state, but at least in some ‘better’ judgment, he stays mostly prone to the floor, rumbling his discomfort between immediately having his ass handed to him, but to the relative pain of existence as well. “Ohh, poor thing,” Xehanort purrs down at him, nudging his side with a boot. “I know you well, you’d like to be complete, wouldn’t you?”

Weakly, Xemnas looks over his shoulder to the old man, still sneering- no, he never wanted to be ‘complete’, fool. Bringing his palms forwards, Xehanort focuses energy between them, unaffected by Xemnas’ apparent mood or ‘feelings’ on the matter; he gathers a piece of himself to share, to bless upon this incomplete being. Unable, or not willing to deny the victor his prize, Xemnas settles to let the elder place whatever spell on him he deigns to place, and as that glowing piece of Xehanort’s essense presses into his back, it binds sharply to that barest pale light the younger Xehanort had pulled forwards to this timeline. Immediately, Xemnas is awash with what he can best guess is  _ placation _ , settling down his discomfort to the situation and his apparent ‘pawning’, and then a sense of stability that stops the wavering in his new existence, ebbing away the pain. He does feel, ‘completed’, and he said it would. He pushes his hands beneath him, and even decides to stand, looking between his eldest and youngest with a flat expression and bright, yellow eyes, but says nothing.

After watching the steam immediately snuff from Xemnas, Ansem becomes significantly less sure he’s interested in what Xehanort is selling, but… he knows too well he won’t win this fight, even if Xemnas doesn’t join them in beating the shit out of him. He sighs, heavily, lowering his hands and accepts, fate. In a similar fashion, Xehanort bestows a piece of him, and Ansem feels that placation as well, his amber eyes shining to bright yellow as he shakes out his head in distaste. Unlike his other half, he didn’t need a piece of heart to keep him grounded, and he’s nowhere as placated by its existence, but Ansem behaves, for now, or forever, if that is where fate leads them. He’s not going to make it easy, though.

The two Xehanort’s leave the two discarded halves in the lab together, and after a long, long silence, Ansem slowly looks to Xemnas. “... Your heart-made Kingdom Hearts didn’t turn out, huh.”

Absolutely hissing, “That was in good part  _ your fault, _ having failed to destroy  _ either  _ newborn keyblade wielders.”

“They were… more determined than I expected them to be,” Ansem squints, nose wrinkling in distaste. between Sora managing to kill him and Riku overcoming his darkness, the situation just was never going to be in his favour.

“I should repeat myself,” Xemnas turns towards him, glaring, “newborn,  _ untrained  _ keyblade wielders.”

“Are you telling me Sora found himself trained to mastery in the time it took him to kill _ you _ ?” Not that Ansem is entirely sure what has happened, but he’s sure Xemnas will correct him if he’s wrong.

Xemnas can’t help but snarl to that, the audacity of his other mocking his destruction, “More time than  _ you _ were given- and Riku alongside, wielding a new blade.”

“I ultimately misjudged what Kingdom Hearts would grant me with once I had opened it,” Ansem raises his hand to rub the underside of his chin as he recalls the memory of this timeline’s Ansem drowning his heartless form in Kingdom Hearts unending light. 

“What an incredible miscalculation on your end.”

“At least I opened the  _ true _ Kingdom Hearts. Did you even make yours viable?” Ansem gestures wide, mocking him outright. He’s forced to take a step back when Xemnas charges him, however, jabbing a finger at him.

“Yes, I did, for your information. Came closer to controlling it than you did,” it’s incredibly strange to see Xemnas snarling at him, but Ansem recognizes that Xehanort had just put a piece of heart in him, and a piece of emotion as well. However, Ansem feels a different sort of connection as well- and it occurs to him that he is no longer a Heartless. He’s been affected by his time as one, still consumed in darkness, but his heart is free in this replica body. He feels a connection to his old other half.

An eyebrow raises at the thought, and slowly, Ansem backs away from him, and Xemnas does not pursue. Apparently, he has the same thought, and straightens, arms folding across his chest. “This argument is pointless. We’re both failures.”

“This is true. So, are we going to lay down like dogs about it.”

Dryly, “Might as well.”

Ansem squeezes his eyes shut, shaking his head with a humoured, “No.”

Xemnas turns to leave, however, “What else is there to do.”

“Anything else- where are you going?”

“This is my castle. I can go wherever I want.”

“This _ was  _ your castle.”

“I know what rooms will be unoccupied. If that young Xehanort can find my pale light through the expanse of time, he can find me wallowing somewhere in the basement,” a corridor opens, and he disappears within it.

Ansem can only shrug to that, letting him leave. “You’re probably not wrong.” Ansem, however, has nowhere to go, and no one he knows. He’s about to accept his fate of sleeping in this lab room, but.

“Damn! Didn’t think you’d two be at each other’s throats so quick,” Xigbar appears behind him, shadow stepping into the scene, apparently listening in the whole time. 

Ansem can’t help but jolt to that, sharply turning around and swatting at him, “Braig- of course you would still be here,” he speaks dryly.

“What else would I be doing,” he shrugs with a soft chuckle, accepting being swatted at. “I’ve always been Xehanort’s right-hand man- not that I guess you would know that, huh.”

“So it seems. And then, I wonder what you’re getting out of this deal, hmn?” Braig often haunted him as an apprentice under the Wise Ansem, though he knew not why before.

“A keyblade! Maybe, if I’m lucky.”

He’s caught off guard by that response, looking at him incredulously, “What… I… A keyblade? That’s all?”

“I mean.. specifically, _ his  _ keyblade.” He looks up at him with that singular, gold eye, eyeing Ansem and his responses.

Looking to his empty hand, Ansem looks through his memories of that keyblade, as impossibly distant and fragmented as they are. “It does seem like it might have done something interesting, but I only ever used it to kill you.”

“Maybe I want it to murder.”

“ _ You _ ,” Ansem laughs, “don’t need a keyblade to kill people.”

“Incredibly true! Glad to see you’re not completely stomped out like Xemnas is, huh.”

“I haven’t been doing this for a hundred years just to lay down when things go wrong. Things can only go wrong until they go right,” he waggles a finger while the other arm remains crossed across his chest, but Ansem’s expression is warped in strain. 

“That’s the spirit! Here, take a walk with me. It’s ah, Xigbar, by the way,” he pockets his hands, looking over his shoulder to the other man- but with the side covered in an eyepatch.

“Ah, still Nobody, then,” he joins Xigbar as he walks towards the door.

“It has its benefits.”


	2. Chapter 2

There’s a lot more downtime in the ‘new’ organization than Xemnas has ever had, and when he isn’t ‘busy’ pressing a dent into the couch with his new weight, he’s tinkering around with old, discarded replicas in an attempt to get them to do what he wants, or what he’s been asked to make them do. Without Vexen or Zexion, it’s never been easy for him to comprehend the physical functionality of a replica, but it was also never his top priority. Once Xion was made physically, Xemnas was free to program her- which was his expertise in the matter. Now that he’s been instructed to get the replica program working again, he stares vacantly down at the hollow, incomplete form on the table in front of him, incapable of convincing it to hold a form. Admittedly, it was made to be an old Riku replica, and Xehanort has yet to bring him a heart of Riku’s from time. Without it, the casing has no hope of holding form as Ansem and Xemnas have done with their respective new bodies.

Xemnas isn’t sure why Xigbar is here, but there he is, his hip pressed to the table as he leans down to try to get a look at Xemnas’ contemplative face. “Having a hard time there, chief?”

“Apparently,” he blinks, slowly, looking over at his singular eyed cohort. He’s no longer Xigbar’s ‘superior’ in this situation, just another pawn. Old habits die hard, however, and with the new light of Xehanort’s piece inside of him, Xemnas finds the creeps of distaste lingering at the back of his throat like bile. “Being expected to get 13 more of these hollow things functioning from the remnants of Vexen’s discarded work is very optimistic.”

“You’re a smart guy!” Xemnas rolls his eyes to that, pushing up from the table and stretching out his neck while Xigbar continues to speak, “Want me to go ask the other guy for help? Since you two don’t seem to be seeing eye to eye yourselves.”

“What would Ansem know,” Xemnas rumbles, lip unconsciously pulling into a sneer. Rubbing his face with both palms, he’s muffled as he continues, “What I  _ need, _ is Vexen.”

“Well…. what about Saix? He also knew things sometimes.”

“Has he decided to come along yet? Last I heard he was taking his imprisonment worse than myself.”

“Ah…” Xigbar stops to think, eye squinting. “I dunno, guess I haven’t checked in a while.” An errant thought, and Xemnas gaze falls back to the non-functioning replica before him. Nose wrinkling when he thinks, and Xigbar questions that, “Whatcha thinking about, chief?”

“I cannot make a replica Riku. I need Riku’s heart, or memories, and while I have some of his memories, I do not know how to convince them to behave.”

“Yeah-huh,” Xigbar nods, looking over to the white, doll-like figure.

“But I do know how to make one set of memories I have behave,” he wanders to his computer, clicking through a few long unused files as Xigbar shifts up to his side to watch. “I do not know how much re-creating this puppet would help, but it would be… something to do?”

“... Uhh-Oh! Poppet!” Xigbar clasps his hands together, a cruel smile crossing his face. “Hey- you never know! Now without Roxas or Axel, who else will she have to befriend and spread that light?”

“No one. I will give her to Saix.”

Xigbar blinks to that, head tilting, “Auhh… They didn’t really… like each other, did they..?”

“No. But Saix is lonely, and it will remind him of his suffering.”

Xigbar just laaaaughs to that, shaking his head, “That’s kind of diabolical, man.”

“I can find more use for her than just that, I think.”

“Think it’s gonna be a safe bet? How you plan on getting her to walk around without a heart, hmn?”

“She didn’t have a heart the first time. In the beginning, at least,” while they talk, Xigbar watches as Xemnas sets himself to programming, loading all of her last memories he’d taken from her when he’d last reprogrammed her to fight Roxas. Sifting through those happy moments with her friends, and subsequently deleting them until all that remained was when she was fighting heartless- or speaking with Saix. Xigbar watches as he twists those moments between them into some level of co-dependance- nothing near what either would consider ‘friendship’, but what she might consider comfortable. 

Xigbar levels a bemused gaze to Xemnas, “Think it’s funny you twist around her thoughts like that and still call her a, y’know… her. Not an it, not some mindless machine.”

Xemnas shrugs, “A machine can still be alive.”

“But why do her the favour?”

“Saix might’ve been very interested in de-personalizing her- but her strength came once she saw her as, herself. A machine can be programmed to kill and behave, but sentience breeds passion. There was a moment when she was unable to summon her keyblade- because she did not have one. A machine would have given up, unable to succeed in its task, but a person becomes desperate, and one day, her weapon was born. A hollow copy- but it did its job well,” Xemnas nods to himself, tapping the monitor as he brings up the memory of it. 

Xigbar just nods to that, having been unknown of the situation before, just that one day, Xion did have a keyblade copied of Roxas. Not that he and the puppet ever had much of a conversation, but Xigbar watches as Xemnas goes through all of her memories with a fine-toothed comb. “Why’d you let her get all wild, if you knew this?”

“As I just said, it bred desperation. I begrudge to admit this, but I was honestly growing desperate myself. Best laid plans often laid to waste and all. Ansem nearly destroying the world gave me… discomfort.”

“And look where we are now,” Xigbar sighs, exaggeratedly, his arms folding over his chest, eye shutting as he contemplates this new information. “You two just gonna keep being snippy at each other, huh?” Xigbar is nowhere near surprised the separated parts weren’t really interested in co-operating.

“Now that you’ve mentioned if I want to ‘ask him for help’, I actually do wish to speak with him on some things.”

He opens his eye to blink at Xemnas again, “Yeah? Do I get to ask what?”

“Well, I could tell you and then repeat myself later when he joins us, or you could do me the favour of catching his attention for me.”

“He’s up to less things than you are, catching his attention isn’t hard,” Xigbar chuckles under his breath, before turning on heel and disappearing through a corridor. 

With the old memories of Xion sifted through for its more viable bits, Xemnas looks to the replica now, him and it alone for the moment. There’s a strange sinking feeling in him- but he can’t define the feeling other that it’s sort of… stopping him, from immediately doing what seemed like a very good idea half a minute ago when he was speaking to Xigbar about it. 

Is it… fair of him to do this?

What does it matter what is fair, heart; he looks down at his chest incredulously as it feeds him, what, doubt? 

It’s easy to push through once he realizes it is there to stop him, you stupid, emotional thing in his chest, pulling the table towards his desk and pulling down the hook up to re-program the replica. Deleting the uploaded, fragmented memories of Riku, and uploading his own, created database of existence. The upload goes seamlessly, but at first, it doesn’t seem to take what it is given, lying prone and motionless on the table.

“Xion. Rise.”

Its white chest rises its first programmed, unnecessary breath, and in a wash of skin-coloured hologram, her body takes form, black hair falling across her shoulders and the surface beneath her. Deep blue eyes look up to the roof, blinking out its infinite sleep-  _ her _ infinite sleep, before flicking over to Xemnas at her side. She has no words for him, however, still quite vacant, but she sits up, folding her hands over her lap and slowly looking about the room. Equally as silent, Xemnas watches her response to living, watches the monitors for stability, but she seems to be going exceptionally well. Xion always did seem to enjoy, existing.

Quietly, she opens her mouth to speak, closing it once before opening again and creaking an inexperienced, new voice, “How did I die?”

“You were destroyed by the 13th.”

Slowly, she blinks, taking in that information. To her knowledge, Roxas was a person whom she knew existed in their ranks, but she rarely spoke to, if ever at all. “What did we fight over?”

“He betrayed us all, and you were tasked to stop him treachery.”

“Oh. I’m sorry I could not defeat him for you, Superior,” though she replies in a vacant, flat tone.

“It is no matter,” there’s that feeling again, that strange pit in his stomach. “We are born anew now,” he rumbles under his breath. We, he says, since they’re both technically ‘new’ here.

The room pressure changes when a dark corridor reopens and Xigbar enters with Ansem in tow. Both of them are startled when they approach, however, because, “Why do you... have a naked girl,” Ansem questions, and Xigbar just laughs.

“I hadn’t had the time to give her a coat yet- I gave her renewed life not but a minute before you have arrived,” he looks to her and she looks back at him, absolutely unconcerned with her nudity. Xemnas does, at least, have a jacket for her, since they weren’t planning on letting the planned Riku replica waltz about naked. Offering her the jacket, she puts it on without verbal prompting, awkwardly attempting to shift it under her butt.

“Weren’t you supposed to be making Riku?” Ansem questions, approaching and looking her over discerningly, but with a hint of amusement. She is awfully cute for someone as aggressive as Xemnas has been to make.

“Riku wasn’t working out,” Xigbar answers, “didn’t think you’d go right away to making Xion, though, thought you were waiting for Ansem.”

Xemnas shrugs, reaching over to adjust her jacket as she sits and, almost curiously, looks between the three of them, tugging her hood over her head. “Why not. I would like to have something to show for my effort rather than nothing.”

“She looks like Kairi,” Ansem muses reaching over to tug at a strand of hair, now hidden beneath her hood., “Beyond this, of course.” She tilts her head curiously to that- because that name doesn’t ring any bells to her.

“It was a strange way she reacted to her initial memories of Sora. Instead of becoming like Sora, she became like someone close to him. That person occupying his most important memories.”

“Not on purpose, you make it sound,” Ansem replies dryly, still looking at Xion as she looks back at him.

“ _ No _ , not on purpose. It was the first curiosity in a list of curiosities,” but Xemnas’ nose wrinkles when he thinks it might seem like Ansem was mocking his uncontrolled science project.

“But look at her now, hmn, she looks like she’s functioning perfectly. The youngest Xehanort was sure you would be in here for days,” Ansem reaches for one of her hands, gently plucking it from its place on her lap and pulling up her limb to test her reflexes. He taps on each pad of her fingers idly, and once she figures out his game, matches his movements in time.

“Why am I here if they think so lowly of me,” Xemnas expression flattens, eyes drifting vacantly to stare at nowhere in particular, pushing down his irritated response.

“Not so lowly- just that, rather, this isn’t your area of expertise, is it.”

“I need Vexen,” Xemnas repeats himself, looking to Xigbar, who nods in acknowledgment.

“Well, he picked up Saix instead, for some reason.”

“Saix does know some parts of the replica program as well….”

“So use him?”

“He is being... picky. So, we round to the point of this,” Xemnas gestures to Xion, who looks up at him brightly at the mention of a familiar name, Saix. “I re-made Xion to offer to Saix to torment him into remembering why he worked well for me in the first place.”

“Did they like each other?” Ansem questions, laying her hand back down.

“No, quite the opposite.”

“Then I don’t think I understand.”

“She replaced him in a circle of friendship.”

“... Ah, so, tormented,” he nods, frowning down to the soft-looking girl. 

“If not, I have other plans as well. When first created, she was meant to steal the strength and memories of a specific individual, which happened to be Sora. This is related to why I had asked Xigbar to ask for you assistance- as I have questions about what our Superior desires of the replicas he’s requested I produce for him.”

Raising an eyebrow, “Why ask me?”

“You know most of his wishes, and I’m not interested in talking to him myself.”

Ansem snrks, “Alright. Ask, then, and to the best of my ability I will answer.”

Xemnas nods to himself, eyes wandering back to his computer monitor. “I have been tasked with preparing replicas for a few of my destroyed old comrades, but only specific ones, who remain disparted and apt to reintegration within his new organizations ranks. Why recreate these vessels with their memory and existence when we could simply create empty replicas to house only his imparted existence?”

Ansem squints as he parses what has been said and how to answer it. “This is me somewhat guessing, but we desire the power of those individuals, their elements and strengths. Equally, it is hard to send an empty thing to do tasks for you if it lacks thoughts. A simple shard of Xehanort’s heart does not offer memory, and the creations therefor would be hollow and aimless.”

Xemnas nods, understanding, “Instead, if you take the existing memories, he will end up with 12 or so people reacting to him much like myself and Saix do. Agreeing, but not willingly.”

“This is true- but you don’t  _ really _ feel like overthrowing him, do you?”

Rumbling under his breath, “I mean, somewhat I do.”

“But you won’t.”

“Indeed, I will not. I cannot.” Tapping his finger on the edge of his computer console, Xemnas nods in begrudged understanding.

Ansem approaches behind him, looking over the monitor, at the way Xemnas had been sifting through her memories before, and how his creation steals power. A thought in his head, and Ansem speaks, “An idea then, to this seemingly flawed plan.”

Looking to his side, Xemnas leans ever so slightly back when Ansem is very close to his face as he reads over his shoulder, “Speak.”

“This creation of yours, it steals power. Could it instead, copy, leaving its individual unharmed in the transfer?”

Xemnas’ eyes roll upwards as he thinks about it, and then looks to his monitor, “Theoretically. Suppose that is better than my idea, which would leave our power stolen.”

“So, then. The twelve of us of stolen parts or replicas, to do the tasks given to us to assist in the war to come. And then, twelve replicas to copy our elements for Xehanort to inhabit unimpeded once his task is in full motion.”

Resting his chin on his knuckles, Xemnas looks over his data, scrolling through dialogues and occasionally clicking through an input. It takes him long enough that Ansem takes a step back to lean against the table while silence lingers for his other part to work, but eventually, Xemnas speaks, “Xion, lay down a moment,” and so, she does, staring up at the roof. 

Ansem and Xigbar take a healthy step back as Xemnas shifts around to work, pulling a scanner down close to her head as he actively plies around with her programming. Her body stiffens like this isn’t exactly comfortable, but there isn’t much she can do but occasionally whine and shift her legs beneath her. Unable to contain himself, Xigbar slinks over to wrap a hand around her ankle, a thumb rubbing over the bare skin there. Shhh now, poppet. 

“There,” it takes him quite some time, but Ansem watches in eager amusement, “I will still give her to Saix, and she can test her ability on him.” When he removes all his equipment, she sits up, but looks much more disheveled and upset than she was before, squeezing her arms around her chest. While he was working, Xemnas hadn’t noticed much her distaste for him wandering around her programmed existence, but Ansem and Xigbar watch curiously when his expression falls to see her so uncomfortable- and then they both startle when he reaches over and gently pets through her hair. 

“You are weeeeird with a heart, man,” Xigbar waves a dismissive hand before turning to leave through a corridor, “Go give that thing to Saix and tell me how it goes, I got some things to do.”

“Very well,” Xemnas doesn’t question his dismissal of the situation, hand returning to his side and looking to Ansem, “And you?”

“Was that all you wanted to ask me about?”

“It seems so.”

“May I join you to watch you give her to Saix?”

“If you wish,” since it makes no difference. Offering her a hand to stand, she does as requested, albeit a little weak on her legs. He offers her pants now, as well, and boots, though they do not fit the greatest on account of them being for a bigger frame than herself, but better than going naked beyond her jacket. She walks well enough after a few minutes of standing and collecting her bearings, and off they go, to the dark, cold and secluded room Saix is barred in. 

When Xemnas opens the door, he’s sitting across on the floor, in a corner, in the darkness, with his face pressed to crossed forearms laid over his knees, and does not respond to the intrusion.

“Saix.”

“Xemnas,” he does deign to reply, albeit muffled, but does not look up.

“I’ve brought you something you may or may not care for.”

To that, however, he does look up, and his weak expression immediately warps to rage when he sees her- which she startles to, because she’s not sure what she’s done to deserve that from him, having only known herself an obedient underling. Perhaps it was due to her failure at Roxas’ hand, and she looks down at her feet, sighing. Saix rumbles, cramming himself in the corner, “I don’t want that _ thing _ anywhere near me.”

“That’s unfortunate, because I’ve built her specifically for you.”

“And what makes you think that will benefit you at all.”

“It isn’t supposed to benefit me,” Xemnas shrugs, pushing her to take a step forward, which she does. “It is supposed to be a benefit for you. You seem lonely down here,” he rumbles, mockingly, “she will do much better this time, she promises.” Eagerly, she nods at him, rubbing her arm with the opposite hand. Slowly, Saix moves to stand, posture held low and aggressively as he approaches them- but he looks down at her wide, blue eyes, and chokes back his initial response. She’s Axel’s friend. His replacement, just a wayward, failed creation. Under him, now, again, but now without distraction.

“Fine,” he barely speaks, running his hands through his hair, rubbing his face, “I hope you will enjoy seeing how this will ‘improve’ my mood.”

“Well, it will do something,” Xemnas looks down to her, and in time she looks up, and then to Saix.

“I can only assume you have ulterior motives to this.”

“Indeed.”

“And suppose I’ll just be accepting that.”

“What choice do you have?”

“None,” and he sighs, turning to head back to the bed across from the wall, sitting there rather than the floor. Barely over his breath, “Not that that’s any different than before.”

“You know, I hate to mention this, you know I equally have no choice.”

“No, I’m very aware of this. Not him,” he gestures to the silent Ansem behind, “Not you, not her,” to Xion.

“So, why are you putting up a fight?”

“You put up a fight.”

“You’re lucky _ he _ hasn’t kicked your ass like he did him,” Ansem muses, exhaling a laugh.

“I bet if I tried to start the fight, I would receive what I’m owed.”

“I’ll leave you be for now, then. Do not be surprised when in the coming days, you’re asked to do something with your time rather than mope,” again, he presses a hand to Xion’s back, and she skitters forwards inside Saix’s room before joining him on his bed when he doesn’t complain to her existence. 

As Saix does not respond to that, Xemnas turns to leave, Ansem following. He speaks after a moment of walking, “I’m somewhat worried he’ll destroy your creation.”

“I could rebuild it again. However, I’m not concerned.”

“No?”

“No. I know Saix well. He will not destroy his only remaining connection. I don’t expect he’ll treat her well, but he will not break her. In a few days, I will check again to make sure she isn’t draining him of his energy as I hope I’ve managed to program.”

“Fair. For the time being, I’m not going to tell Xehanort what you’re up to.”

Raising an eyebrow, he looks to his counterpart, “No? Why not? Do you think I will not succeed?”

“No, I  _ do  _ think you will succeed. I just don’t want him to say no. If we’re in the middle or more than half past succeeding, it will be much harder for him to do so.”

Slowly squinting at him, Xemnas stops their walking to give him a discerning look. “So…. You, are appealed by my idea, but you do not think Xehanort will be?”

“I think he will think it’s an extra, unnecessary step. He thinks that all will obey, or that he can snuff out their existences and claim their forms if they should continue to disobey him.”

“... And making copies saves our existences,” he rumbles under his breath. “But what for- the universe will be destroyed.”

Ansem shrugs, looking his other half straight into his eyes, “Unless it isn’t.”

… slowly, Xemnas nods, and they continue to walk back to his lab.


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> a vague amount of xemnas&saix and marluxia&larxene.

A distantly familiar greenspace, hardly changed since the first time he stepped into its world from a dark corridor, alone. And why would it have changed- it’s been what, 5 or more years? Xemnas can’t say counting the days or years was high in his priority, so alas, he doesn’t for sure. A smell catches him sniffing audibly to the air, distantly burning wood through a haze of humidity. The air this time is gloomy and wrought with a cold chill, so he raises a hand to tug his hood over his head as, and as if on cue, rain begins to fall from the sky. As the foliage above him catches the droplets that fail to sneak past, they collect into fat drops that fall so audibly onto his hood, he nearly finds himself flinching when they strike the top of his head. Instead, he occupies himself with a memory as he walks.

An hour or so earlier in the castle, “So you failed at keeping your vessels alive.” The younger Xehanort chastises him with crossed arms, “and you can not produce the one you’re asked for.” 

“I was unaware at the time you needed them alive. As Nobodies- you must know, I can likely fix this problem, if he so desires some specific ones.”

“Hmn? I don’t know, do tell.”

“If their will was strong enough to retain their human forms, I doubt destruction will leave them disappeared to this world. In fact, I’m fairly certain I’ve felt them since.”

“... So? You could reclaim these vessels? Our Master _ is  _ very interested in specific ones, as he read your reports on them all. Some of them piqued… familiar, though I personally know not why.”

Xigbar adds in, still often finding himself the right-hand in any conversations, “So, no wandering through time to find their memory?”

“I can’t promise that- but I can attempt to find their will and body that exists here still, and the memories remaining chained to their existence as Nobody.”

“And then vessels again they become,” Xehanort nods, eyes half-lidding in thought. “Fine. For now, go find these separated vessels and reclaim them,” and he turns to leave with a curt wave of his hand, leaving Xigbar and Xemnas alone.

A slow, drawn out inhale of air, Xemnas slowly levels his golden gaze to Xigbar’s singular, Xigbar raising an eyebrow to question wordlessly in return, so Xemnas speaks, “They’ll be dusks. They all turn back to dusks, like heartless always come back to shadows- though those shadows may be destroyed by a keyblade, the nobody do not always do so. They live on, broken apart or put back together, as long as their will subsists on its existence. Those weaker may fade, but I doubt this of those holding their original forms at first.”

Tilting a curious head, “How do you know that, huh?”

“I’ve been to see one already- he’s likely right where I left him.”

Blinking, “Who?”

An old farmstead, a young girl leans over her porch railing, just barely covered by the lip of the gable away from the now pouring rain. Her eyes follow the movement of bushes nearby- but oddly enough, she doesn’t flinch to the sight of Xemnas waltzing up to her property, regardless of how far he’s tucked under his hood. In fact, he’s been here recently.

“Back for your friend?” She calls out to him, looking head to toe in confusion.

“Unfortunately,” he rumbles back barely loud enough to be heard above the falling rain. 

As if it's aware it's being called, a Dancer skates ecstatically from around the corner of the house, singing a whistling tune as it splashes up the mud puddles growing in the dirt road surrounding them. It skates around Xemnas as well, his head barely turning to follow the movement of it, before it seems to catch on that Xemnas doesn’t seem pleased to be here and slowly fades to a stop to stare up at him vacantly.

“Oh yeah? Unfortunately? You did say you probably wouldn’t come back.”

No, he hadn’t planned to. He’d planned to destroy the universe. Leaving Demyx here was just an interlude for his continuing non-existence. “I need to take my friend back, now.”

“Aw, what for? He’s a hoot,” she laughs, fading into a pained sort of sigh. “He’s singing up a storm,” pointing to the clouds, “for you, huh?”

“I am unsure he knew I was coming,” he reaches down to pat the dancer’s head, “Maybe.” He peers down from below his hood at it, expression pained. Tilting on its heels, the dancer doesn’t seem to know what to do with Xemnas looking so… Looking so! It doesn’t remember the last time it even saw him, it’s definitely been ages and ages. Though he doesn’t remember being anything other than this, and being here, but Xemnas knows the chains of his memory are linked deep within his will. Something keeps Demyx undying, and it seems as if Xehanort knows. Very, very quietly, “I’d rather leave you here.”

“What was that?” The girl calls.

“Nothing,” he replies, leaning down to scoop the dancer under his arm as it peeps in distress, but knows better than to deny Xemnas’ will. “I hope to never see you again,” as he walks back from where he came.

“You too buddy! Be safe.”

Under his breath, “I probably won’t.”

  
  


Before he had left, however. Saix and Xion await in an inseparable pair for something, god, anything to do, so when Xemnas arrives at his door with that something, he’s immediately on his heels to listen, Xion in obedient tow.

“I need you to go fetch Marluxia and Larxene for our new Master.”

… A very, very slow blink. “... That… will be harder than you’re implying, since they are dead.”

“No, they’re just dusks. Or, I think they may not be anymore. You can go alone, or I can convince Xigbar to join you.”

His nose wrinkles in the utmost distaste, “I will be fine by myself, thank you.”

“Well,” Xemnas gaze falls to Xion, tucked deep behind her hood. “Not alone.”

Looking down at her in time with him, “Suppose not. You better be worth the effort of taking you with me.”

Quietly, “I will be, sir.”

Like a reversal, the world Saix and Xion step into under Xemnas’ direction is void of life- a hollow, ruined city left in the wake of some uncontainable flood; a clear night sky without rain or clouds, but a constant deluge of water from every broken building and cliff face around them. There is no sun or moon, just an empty, blackened sky, too far from any world for a twinkling star to share its light. “Well, this is quite the place for a flowery fool such as Marluxia to inhabit,” Saix speaks mostly to himself as he slowly looks around. Xion can’t help but shake a boot out as they immediately become waterlogged, but it is to no avail. “Get used to being wet.”

A sad little noise from underneath her hood, but she nods, keyblade appearing in a flash in her grasp. Running on instinct, heartless, shadows slink from between the cracks around them, attracted to their fledgling, piecemeal hearts- and now, the light of her replicated keyblade. “Oops…”

“They would have come anyway,” and with a shift of his posture, the Lunatic appears as well. “Don’t bother fighting them unless you have too- we’re looking for two Nobodies, that is all.”

“Mmhmnn,” she nods, already looking around for places to jump up for a better vantage point to see. “Maybe dusks, but maybe not?”

“Yes. Look for anything out of place.”

Adeptly, she bounces up a building while Saix remains on the ground. They split up for the time being, since it’s all just shadows and neo-shadows occasionally gripping at their legs, and that is very easily dealt with. Unlike Xemnas, however, neither of them have a connection with the two they’re after, let alone were the two nobodies left here on purpose like Demyx; Xemnas just recalls he’d once felt them in their new states, and he wasn’t interested in bringing them home again after the initial treason they took part in. 

An hour or so later, Xion reconvenes. “I.. I can’t find anything, I’m sorry…”

“Me neither,” he rasps, somewhat winded from fighting. There were definitely more heartless on the ground where he was searching, but equally, he was feeling strangely weak. Sighing his frustration, “I don’t feel like we’ve missed the mark where Xemnas told us to drop…”

“No, this is definitely where he told us. Maybe they moved on from what he last felt them? Maybe they ran when we arrived.”

“That makes it more tedious,” he stretches out a shoulder with a pained noise, thoroughly soaked and bruised, his hood pulled off his head and matting his hair wet to his face. Blinking out an errant strand from his eyes, “Suppose we’ll return empty-handed, then.”

She frowns deeply to this, worrying her hands together as she sinks beneath her hood. “I…”

Saix can’t help but sneer to that, “You what? You’ve said it yourself- they’ve probably moved on.”

“I said I would do my job, so I’ll do it.”

“Sometimes failure is the option you’re given,” he grumbles, mostly to himself, but she can’t seem to stop wringing her hands together in her nervousness. Saix might be protected from destruction in his failure- but Xion is acutely aware by now that her existence was conditional, on Xemnas’ will that she remains useful.

“Can I look just a bit longer?”

“Fine, it doesn’t matter to me,” but with an exhaustion setting in, he moves towards a nearby desolate building, disappearing into its broken entrance. Taking that as it is, Xion disappears back into the streets.

It’s eerily quiet as he walks in, so much he can hear his own wheezing breath, but he spots a nearby piece of rubble he can rest his weight on for a moment. He notes that the heartless slim to nothing in here, just a few shadows that skirt around broken window sills and doorways, but refuse to approach the center room that Saix is currently traipsing across. That should be something to question, but exhaustion clouds his judgement, and he catches his stupidity physically when a large form inhabits the darkness to the side of him. A stark, striking white figure, forming several feet taller than Saix himself- so, suppose Marluxia or Larxene hadn’t remained dusks, as Xemnas warned. This nobody still seems… wrong, however, Saix silently remarks to himself as he turns to face it, lowering his stance and his weapon. “Shhh… Whoa there,” he speaks to it quietly, but it seems enraged, a fury of thorns tangling at its rooted center as wings unfurl behind it, and Marluxia’s telltale scythe appears in its grasp. Another question arises now that he sees the towering nobody fully in the dark, because it looks awfully _ , effeminate _ , but Marluxia was also, well… “Marluxia, hold.” Now, him and Marluxia were never friends, but could he possibly know that Saix had a hand in sending Axel to kill him and Larxene? The heartless around the building disappear at the nobody’s insistence, the already compromised ground beneath it cracking in its restrained fury. This is where Saix should be taking a step back to perhaps get Xion and his bearings, but instead, his claymore reappears in his grasp, and he charges forwards in controlled rage. He’ll be doing you a favor now, Marluxia. If he destroys him instead of capturing him, he’ll be free. He just needs to lay down and stay dead this time.

He’s far, far too slow for the scythe-wielding nobody, however, and it bomps him uselessly out of the air before he can even make contact. Quick enough on his feet, he’s back for more, and even hits it about the legs a few times before he’s overcome, wrapped up by those piercing thorns, and the regret starts to set in. Now, he  _ knew _ he was tired, damningly so, though he’d blamed it earlier on his new re-unexisting, being rusty on the uptake, this is… sort of obscene. Oh, god though, if _ this  _ kills him, would it not provide the same effect he was offering Marluxia- freedom. But he _ can’t _ just sit here and let himself die. 

As he breaks through that crushing tangle of thorns, blasting backward to barely land on his feet, two new nobodies appear in his vision, crowded behind the legs of the biggest. Wait- that’s three then? And, unfamiliar types, at least at first. Old in his memory, and just as written down prototypes, a Reaper, with a similar scythe that bobs around the air, and a Ninja, that balances around on sharp-edged knives for hands. Wait, so… then,  _ that _ is Marluxia and Larxene, scared and hiding behind this big one. Then, who is this big one?

It doesn’t let him think about it for very long, and in his thoughts, he’s sent flying and mildly perforated by the edge of its scythe. A hole torn in his jacket and his un-being in time, when he hits the pooling water, a darkness seeps into the injury- an infectious pain he’s familiar with, but nowhere near happy about. Up on his feet again in an instant, Saix barely holds his own to block off the next attack, and while he was joking to himself about facing destruction and the freedom it would provide earlier, this large nobody was about to give him the grace of death. One more swoop of its weapon, and he flinches his eyes shut for the pain- but instead, his ears are greeted to the sound of metal on metal. “Saix!” Oh, Xion.

Rough in his throat, “Thanks for taking your time,” but he is truly thankful, trying to stand up on his legs. There’s that keyblade between them both and destruction, and she’s more than easily holding her own against it, proving Saix was much, much weaker than normal rather than this enemy being inherently strong. Inconvenient, at best.

“Ah- are you ok?” she looks worried over her shoulder, but he pushes her head back forwards,

“Pay attention! This thing is no pushover,” he tries to pretend there was a good excuse for his ass being kicked, and she takes that excuse, for his sake.

She spots the other two across the hall too, peeping a confused sound, but the large nobody also does not give her a chance to think. Xion’s far more on the ball, however, and in a few good hits, has the thing heading backward. “Just stop! We don’t even want to fight! We just want Marluxia and Larxene.”

Unwilling to part with them apparently, it flexes out its wings, the air gusting with flower petals that pour down in delves into the puddles that grow with every moment they fight down here. When it comes for her again, something snaps in her head, a rage that blinds out her vision and rips a scream from her throat when she’s hopeless to contain it. Overcome with a foreboding light, the water at her feet explodes out from under her when she lunges forward, and that energy explodes on contact, but to her confusion, there’s no keyblade in her hands- it’s the Lunatic, and it seems very content to be here. Still overcome with rage, she rides its will with both hands desperately grasped to its hilts, and within a few strikes, the large nobody falls backward with a pained rumbling.

Xion wasn’t about to go back on her word, though. She wasn’t interested in destroying this nobody- that wasn’t the mission. She just needed to get Marluxia, Larxene, and Saix now, back to the castle. Even if she was interested in killing this large, unknown nobody, in the wake of her rage, the reaper nobody teleports between them. Its head ducked down low, skirt tucked in tight beneath it, it looks ready to take the next hit, but with a hard heaving in her chest, Xion manages to contain herself, growling and drooling in distress. 

From behind her, “Xion, collect yourself,” Saix speaks weakly as he rises to his feet, “If you two want us to leave with your friend survived, you’ll be coming with us.” Weakly, the reaper, nods, and though the ninja seems far more annoyed by this, its forgotten but instinctual memory makes leaving the reaper behind impossible, and skitters up to its skirting. Behind him, the large nobody warbles its distress, attempting to rise, but the reaper turns and hisses back at it, shaking its head, no. Sit. “Come, then,” Saix opens a corridor, offering them first entrance and for them to follow, so, they do, somewhat solemnly for emotionless creatures. Xion follows closely behind, still weak from her rage, but as they disappear into the corridor, she spots sweat-wet blue strands of hair in her vision. 

  
  


“Your vessels,” Xemnas offers, the three of them at his heel. Of course, none of which hold a humanoid form, or seemingly any relative knowledge to their memory, so the eldest Xehanort can only stare with a raised eyebrow.

“Not quite what I was expecting...”

“I had warned your other that this was the case. Imbued with strength, they may return to existence once more.”

“Hmnn,” he muses, rubbing the back of his knuckles to a bearded chin in thought, “A heart, perhaps?”

“This does provide its own kind of power, yes,” Xemnas nods, but doesn’t exactly understand his meaning.

Xehanort explains himself when a familiar glow forms between his palms, and a pale light grows collected there. Oh, yes, that makes sense. Xehanort’s fragmented heart. That was the point, wasn’t it anyway? As vessels and all. “Who is first, hmn?” He looks between the three of them, leveling his gaze on the reaper as it drifts listlessly and barely above the floor. Seeing it is being singled out, however, it draws itself forwards, head held low. “Ah, good boy.” With an outstretched palm, he offers that piece of himself to the reaper, and it sinks into its chest.

It doesn’t seem to take at first, its body shrinking in discomfort, but Xemnas makes up the difference in energy, jolt-starting the Nothing remaining in it. Overcome in a bright light and a sea of thorns, after a few short moments of transformation, Marluxia stands there, golden eyes squinted nearly shut in discomfort, shaking. But, definitely ‘living’. Unable to speak, however, his eyes may be that dark-laden gold, but they’re vacant, dull and lifeless. Xemnas speaks to this, “He will need some rest, I think, to collect his bearings.” The ninja sneaks up beside him on knifed hands, tilting its head up to linger beneath his palm, and after a short moment, Marluxia offers it the barest pet.

Satisfied this solution is working, “So be it. Allow me to change the rest. I count, however, one missing.”

“Xigbar was off to find the last.”

As if on cue, a corridor opens, and the two ‘nort’s turn heads to face the interloper, “I found him! And something else~,” Xigbar teases as he steps through with a Gambler in tow. It bounces lively in place, cards flipping between non-existent hands. It seems far less distressed to be here than the other three- not necessarily happy about it, but neither upset.

“Oh, very good,” Xehanort nods, already forming another piece of himself in his hands, “Something else, though?”

“A present for Xemnas, really. I mean, all in all is a present for you in the long run, too, but.”

He stands there with shrugged shoulders as he tilts his head back to peer at the still open corridor, expression flattening when it takes this surprise a few extra seconds than he’d like to arrive but… Even, steps through the door. Head ducked nervously, his still emerald eyes drift to the floor, his hands picking apart the opposite sleeve of his lab coat. 

Xemnas brightens visibly to this, blinking in confusion, his head slowly tilting in thought. “... I did need Vexen.”

“Well, there’s a step to getting ‘Vexen’,” Xigbar looks to the very still a human Even.

“And what are you here for, Even?” Xemnas questions.

“You… you have all my research,” he rumbles, barely over his breath. “I want that back.”

“So I might not use it?”

“No. I don’t care what _you_ do with it. I just want to continue what I was doing.”

Xemnas mulls it over in his head, pressing a hand to his chin as his eyes drift back to Xehanort. “Vexen was a very valuable asset before his destruction.”

“The primary creator of those Replicas, yes? Very valuable, with your new plan. What say you to splitting apart again, hmn? I will hold your heart somewhere, if you’d like.”

“I mean,” Even shrugs, “Will I be using it later?”

“Maybe,” Xehanort shrugs, “But first, come,” he gestures to the still idle gambler, and it steps forwards. In a similar fashion to Marluxia, the gambler takes this offered fragment of heart, but seems to hold far more of its strength in his recovery, Xemnas’ assistance unrequired, and there after a swarm of thorns, Luxord stands. Golden, dark eyes, still vacant, but less pained than Marluxia was. He looks between the lot of them slowly, and even deigns to yawn.

Even tries to hide his distaste to the situation, but Xemnas catches it. They hold eye contact a long moment while Xehanort is distracted looking over Luxord. Mouthing out the word, ‘relax’. It’s hard to relax though in the wake of that, and even more so when Xehanort’s keyblade appears in his grasp, since Even has been taken apart by it before, albeit in someone else's hands. “I cannot lie to you and say this will be comfortable.”

“Ah, no, I know exactly how comfortable this will be,” Even mumbles, and tries to keep his hands away from his chest.

  
  


Existence is tiring. He still feels empty, and tired, and weirdly hungry, honestly. One thing hasn’t changed, at least. Demyx sits reclined on a couch, strumming his sitar, waiting for something to do. Or avoid doing. Whatever works.

Suppose it’s a bit different, because across from him, Saix lays unconscious on the couch. But also, he has a ‘young’ replica named Xion with him? Which seems so distantly familiar, but he can’t recall why. It’s just a feeling, that it’s weird those two would be cohorts in any manner. More weird than Saix laying half-dead on the couch. On account of Demyx wandering and finding this room himself, it’s not as if anyone else has even seen Saix apparently injured and napping here, but out of nervousness, Demyx doesn’t have the effort to find someone and ask if they care about the state he’s in. Demyx is aware that the other newborn nobodies are all in their own states of disrepair, so perhaps everyone has better things to worry about. Besides- whatever, it’s Saix. He’s an asshole. Maybe he deserves a couple of holes in his chest to stew over in discomfort.

It’s easy to lose track of time when Demyx slips in and out of consciousness himself, overcome with the newly re-awakened sleepies, but every time his consciousness perks back up, Saix looks decidedly… worse. He’s taken to swallowing in pain constantly, face contorted in distress as he whines softly at each readjustment in his laying. The girl, Xion, she keeps trying to comfort him, it seems, tucked under his arm, but it doesn’t seem to be doing him any luck. Demyx still thinks he’ll just ignore it, but after hours and hours of apparent agony, Saix doesn’t seem to recover from whatever injury this is, and starts to  _ fade _ .

“Oh- shit, fuck,” Demyx hurriedly stands when those strands of being start peeling from Saix’s existence, and in time Xion moves herself from his lap. “Uhhhh ohh shit, ok,” now, Demyx is not a smart man, so he doesn’t have any instinct for this, but just sort of, near uselessly pats Saix’s face until his eyes flick open again. “Wake up, jackass!”

He is incredibly confused by this specter in his vision, because Demyx is dead! Or was dead. Wait- no, earlier today. The nobodies they were collecting. Very, very hoarsely, “What do you want.”

“You’re fading. Get up,” Demyx insists, casually leaning down and jostling his shoulders when Saix’s starts to close his eyes again.

“Ahhr….” a barely rasped mumble, but every time Demyx pokes him, he does make an attempt to get up, but this obviously isn’t working.

“You! Little.. replica. Xion.”

She nods, peering up at him barely below the lip of her hood, “Yes?”

“Go get uh… Xemnas, yeah. Go find Xemnas, or your buddy is gonna kick the bucket.”

“Uh? Kick the bucket?” She looks down at Saix, head tilting on confusion.

“Yeah! Kick the bucket! He’s gonna disappear, die, whatever.”

“Oh! He’s going to… uhhh,” and with that, she skitters out the door.

But like. Where is Xemnas? She passes by a few sets of legs as she goes, eyes pinned to the ground, most of which she doesn’t aptly recognize and one that is very much the Big Scary Old Man, but he doesn’t stop her, and she’s been told to find  _ Xemnas. _

“Where was she to in such a hurry...” Ansem muses as the small girl skitters by before looking to his elder with a raised brow.

A hum of thought, and Xehanort turns opposite to where she was heading, and towards where she was running from, “Let us go find out, I suppose.”

As she seemed to be heading from a room Ansem knows as a place they’d set up chairs and couches to pretend to relax in, he’s not surprised when people are, in fact, inside. But, it’s just two people, and it’s Demyx gently splashing Saix’s face with water, the droplets hovering between his fingers as he stares intently at Saix’s face. However, as the door opens, he perks up to hopefully seeing Xemnas, but, “You’re not Xemnas!” Saix takes that moment to relax back into his laying, however, and both ‘nort’s see the problem at hand when he immediately starts disintegrating. 

Not terribly eager to see a vessel fall for no good reason, Xehanort immediately paces over, “Ahh, and what have you done to yourself.” Reaching down, he snags up where Saix’s arm lay pressed to his side, and the injury is very apparent. Demyx attempts to vacate himself from the presence of the Big Scary Old Man, but he reaches out towards him with a beckoning finger, “No, stay here, I may require your water.”

Ansem follows leisurely behind, looking over from the back of the couch. “I suppose his trip into reclaiming the two nobodies was rougher than anticipated.”

Xehanort shakes his head, “This is incredibly strange. I know these wounds, I am sure you do as well.”

Looking down at the injury, it’s infested with darkness. Any normal man would succumb to such an infection, but Saix was nowhere near ‘normal’. He should be shrugging it off with ease. “So there is something underlying the injury.”

“He is incredibly weak, despite my heart.” To his benefit, though, with Xehanort’s heartpiece, Xehanort is able to offer him energy, and through its power, absorb it to stay existent. It doesn’t really rise Saix consciousness much, but he’s looking between the three of them now, blinking in the utmost confusion. “You,” he gestures to Demyx again, who stiffens with a peep, “your water, here,” pointing to the injury now that he’s pulled Saix’s arm off it. There’s a seconds hesitation, but Xehanort doesn’t have to give him a very discerning look for long before Demyx hops up on his knees and scoots back to Saix’s side. Attracted to water, it seems, the darkness rinses out as Demyx casually pours water all over Saix and the couch. 

Ansem takes that long moment to think about the issue at hand, before stiffening at a thought, “Oh, weakness- Demyx, where is that replica?”

“Huh?” He looks up, “Oh, uh… I told her to go find Xemnas, cause I like.. don’t know anyone else.”

“What about the replica?” Xehanort questions.

“She is meant to copy powers, yes? Before, however, she  _ stole _ , not copied. I think this is the root of Saix’s distress.”

“Mnn.. Well, suppose if she has copied him fully, then, if he does refuse not to fade, it is no real loss.”

“Ahh… I feel to Xemnas’ will, we’re better off keeping Saix alive himself,” Ansem muses, reaching down to brush some blue bangs from his face. Still fairly incoherent, Saix leans into the touch, sighing softly. 

“Oh? He pretends to care for this one?”

“I think so.”

As if he feels his ears burning, Xemnas appears at the doorway, Xion picked up and resting on his hip as he walks. “What about Saix?” as if to damn himself into apparently caring for Saix, Xemnas tone is just a mote more concerned than it should be.

Xehanort replies to that, “He’s infected with darkness. Your replica might be damning him to weakness.”

He looks down at her, tucked deep beneath her hood. “Oh. I thought I fixed that. I guess I will be making some adjustments,” that only makes Xion sink deeper. However, Xemnas hasn’t taken the chance to look at her yet, and is definitely, curious. With his free hand, he tugs her hood over her head, and nearly smiles when there’s a little Isa in his arms. “Well,  _ this _ did work.”

Xehanort makes a curious hum to that, and since Saix seems to be fine for a moment, leaves him to take a good look at the replica and her changed form. “I did not get a good look at her before, so I don’t know how you’ve changed- but you certainly do _ look _ like Saix.” 

“I…” When she speaks, she sounds exactly like herself still, “I used his weapon when I fought, too. Is that what was supposed to happen?” she looks curiously to Xemnas, who slowly sets her down for Xehanort to look over. 

“Yes, that is exactly how you were supposed to perform.” She brightens visibly to that, which is strange to see on Isa’s face. “Well, other than you were _ not  _ supposed to be stealing this power.” Aww, brightness faded.

“I didn’t mean to..”

“You cannot control it. Alternatively, it is not as if Saix is completely drained, yes? He was up and walking still while you were fighting.” She nods to that. “So, I think you are perhaps stealing too quickly and returning too slowly. I will need to keep you apart for a short while, while he recovers.”

Xehanort nods, looking back to him on the couch, “I will take him with me, if I can. Perhaps give your little experiment to someone else to copy for a bit? Test the versatility.” 

“That seems fair,” Xemnas reaches down to pull her hood back over, and she thankfully shrinks beneath it. “I have several vessels to choose from, now.”

“Ansem,” he calls the heartless as he turns back towards the couch, “would you help me carry this sad soul back to my room?”

He tries really hard not to cringe to that notion, but both his others notice the barest sneer on his lip. “Oh, he’ll love that,” but he reaches over the couch, easily hefting Saix’s weight into his arms. 

“Be gentle,” Xemnas rumbles to the both of them, reaching to offer Xion a hand to follow him, unless she wants to be picked up like a kitten again. 

“How gentle I will be is up to him to decide,” Xehanort replies, giving Xemnas a dry, combative look. Unwilling to fight him on this, however, Xemnas backs off, opening a corridor to disappear into with his replica. 

Just as quickly as it started, Demyx remains quiet and passive enough that all three Xehanort’s disappear through corridors or the door. “Wow! This just sucks all over, all the time,” he exclaims to himself, dusting off his lap to return to the couch. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> marly and luxord stood there naked for that entire scene.


	4. Chapter 4

“You know, I don’t want to disagree with you to say that having the strength of Sora on our side rather than that of light sounds unappealing- but it seems like a _ lot  _ of effort for one boy.”

“A boy who has,  _ several times now _ , found himself to be the turning point in any clash between light and dark, swaying every favour to that of his light,” the younger Xehanort looks dryly up to his heartless counterpart, Ansem’s nose wrinkling in response. “I’m tired of hearing how you all failed to a single child. So- let us remove the problem at hand.”

He can’t respond to that with much more than a shrug, “but chasing him through dreams? I have wandered the dreamscape before- it is far less navigable than you’re implying it is.”

“Maybe for you,” Xehanort scoffs, “With that new vessel, Marluxia, who claims a hold over sleep, it will be a simple task. Alternatively- our Master says this story is fated. We will have our thirteenth vessel from a warrior of light- and I  _ will  _ make it Sora. Are you going to complain, or are you going to help?”

His eyes roll upwards as he thinks about it- but Ansem is mostly teasing.  _ Mostly.  _ “I will help. It will be something to do, and I can’t begrudge that.”

“That’s the spirit,” Xehanort replies flatly, “it’s not as if I was actually giving you a choice.”

“You certainly weren’t.” 

“Do me a favour and inform Xemnas of his task? His more personal hand in non-existence and the way Marluxia’s magic works will make him more necessary than you. Not to mention, he’s more inclined to Sora’s memory and heart than you. Ultimately- this is also his world, and if we plan on sinking it into sleep to access the sleeping realms, I would prefer he knew about that.”

Ansem nods, Xehanort is correct. With Roxas, his nobody, and Xion, a clone of his memories, Xemnas is far more the Sora ‘expert’ than himself. “Always doing you favours,” Ansem purrs, eyes half-lidding as he stares down at his youngest self. “Putting a whole world to sleep, though?”

“It will be tied to Sora’s dream. As long as Sora sleeps, so will the world with him, and when he awakes anew with Xehanort’s heart, so will this world. So, you, relay this information to Xemnas?” He returns the look in kind, knowing full well his authority, “I have other, more important things to do than provide a facade of good tidings to him.”

“Very well,” Ansem waves a dismissive hand, “it will be done. You know how and where to find me when you want it,” and he turns to leave, eyes shutting as he walks slowly, focusing… Where are you, old body?

_ Stop doing that. _

In the living area, vegetating on the couch. Ansem’s not even sure why he asked, really. Where else is Xemnas once the day has begun. Well, that’s not fair, sometimes he’s hovering over Vexen as he works on replicas. Sometimes he sits and listens to the older Xehanort prattle on about his grandiose plans. Gleening knowledge and all that.

Today, he’s listening to Demyx play his interesting instrument and doing nothing else in particular. “News from the highest,” Ansem greets him as he enters, offering Demyx the slightest wave. Casually stepping up to the back of the couch, behind Xemnas as he sits, he looks down at the top of his head until Xemnas deigns to crane his neck backward and peer up at his other. “Not interested?”

“I do not care either way.”

“Of course you don’t,” Ansem huffs. “The two Xehanort’s have garnered some knowledge that the two young keyblade wielders are dropping into sleeping worlds in an attempt to rise them from their slumber in the wake of my destruction.”

A slow, thinking blink. “And?”

“We’re going to drop as well in line with them, diverting Sora’s trajectory. If we drop Sora’s heart deep enough into slumber, Xehanort on high thinks we can steal his powered body for a vessel.”

“... That sounds… interesting,” he tilts his head a confused bit, eyes squinting in thought, “sleeping states are not easy to just dip into and control.”

“He seems to think otherwise, and I’m bored enough not to question it too much.” Casually, Ansem reaches hands forwards, casually plucking some straying strands of Xemnas’ hair and tugging on them gently.

Xemnas verbally questions nothing to Ansem’s actions. “I‘m keen of the idea of taking Sora out of our equations.”

“It does sound incredibly appealing. As a note-  _ both  _ keyblade wielders will be sleeping, so I expect Riku to make himself all varieties of pain.”

Xemnas nods, sitting up straight again and moving to stand, pulling his hair forwards and away from toying fingers. “Well, I can only presume that is why we are coming along for this little interlude.”

“A good judgment. I will be keeping Riku as occupied as I can, and you will be trailing Sora. The youngest will decide wherever he feels like being at any given time.”

“As he often does.”

“Does it ease you to know all of us will be there? It will not just be us four shattered Xehanort’s meandering through sleep.”

“That is easing to know, yes.”

“So are you ready for me to tell you the bad news?”

Xemnas stares him down silently, expression hardened.

“We need a base of operations in that dreaming place. So, our Master plans to sink this world into sleep alongside Sora’s dreams.”

“... The World that Never Was? Sleep? It barely exists,” Xemnas retorts, gesturing his confusion with a hand.

“What better place to sink a heart into a sleep entranced darkness than one that barely slips past reality? It will draw the lines between sleep and death incredibly blurred.”

“What is the plan afterward? Just to leave it sleeping?”

“Well, if we succeed, we will hardly need this place anymore. Alternatively, it will wake when Sora wakes- or even more alternatively, our Master seems more interested in moving us to that keyblade graveyard to operate from.”

“... Just that, empty graveyard?”

Demyx, who has been listening the entire time, mumbles mostly to himself as he still strums his sitar, “Oh my god, I don’t want to live in a graveyard, what the fuck.”

Ansem’s expression stiffens when he tries to just, comprehend the things that come out of Demyx mouth sometimes. “He seems to think we’ll be occupied enough that we won’t need much else but a place to meet up like that graveyard will be.” But Ansem sounds just as annoyed by the idea as Xemnas is. 

“... Very well,” Xemnas folds his distaste in favour of just getting on with it. “When?”

“Tonight.”

“Thank for telling me so promptly.”

“The younger actually came to me this morning with this information.”

“Suppose he is doing us the same favour we’re often owing him.”

Ansem nods to that, turning towards the door. “I shouldn’t be surprised, no. Care to join me to visit our Master so he might explain the full berth of this…. little, excursion?” 

**  
  
**

There’s really no discernible difference in the way that the now sleeping World that Never Was feels, other than the inhabitants are now, technically, sleeping as well. At least, no one of importance to the situation seems terribly affected by this turn of events- but Xion and Saix sit out on a high window sill, watching the scene beneath them unfold from a nearby skyscraper. Her mind feels constantly torn asunder in this place, as if her memories were poorly stitched together, or attempting to drift into each other or into  _ someone else _ , so Saix has a firm grip on the back of her jacket in case she deigns to fall out of the window. He’s crowded deep beneath his hood, vacantly watching the base of the tower beneath them.

“So, that boy down there? That’s Roxas now?”

“Yes.”

“And we were friends?” She asks weakly, looking up at him with her tired, blue eyes.

“Yes,” he answers, quietly. He doesn’t dare look over to her, staring out into the streets.

“How come I don’t remember that….” she rasps, swallowing uncomfortably as Sora talks along with Xigbar.

“They don’t want you to.”

“Why? I guess.. if Roxas was my friend, then Sora would be my friend. And I would feel bad? About what they’re doing to his heart?”

“You might.”

Looking up at him, he looks like he’s barely cognizant of the situation himself, but at least more than her that they’re not both immediately toppling out of the window. Turning back with wet, tired eyes to where Saix was vacantly staring. “Well, I don’t feel much of anything.”

“No, you wouldn’t. You’ve been taken apart.”

“What do _ you _ feel, Saix?”

“Nothing.” Neither of them particularly look or feel like they don’t feel anything, though.

“I… I want to see Roxas before he goes… If we were friends. Shouldn’t I go see him?”

“You probably  _ shouldn’t _ . But I won’t stop you, either.” Xehanort appears in a flash with Xigbar and the unknown boy, Sora, and she flinches at the sight of them. “You better go quick, if you’re going to. He’ll be fallen in a second.”

“I still don’t know how someone dreams more than once.”

“It’s complicated.”

Slowly, she leans over on him, sighing softly. “Could I dream twice? Maybe they won’t catch me if I see him in a dream. And then, maybe Roxas will dream with me.”

“... I have no idea,” he cranes his head down to give her a curious look, “do you think you can?”

Softly, her eyes shudder shut.

It’s incredibly easy, honestly. Since, secretly, they’re one in the same, her and Sora, so when Xehanort casts the spell to sleep Sora, she falls along time with him. She slips into the dream Xehanort weaves seamlessly and without notice, watches as the world folds into a new, distorted version of itself, and hides behind a corner as Sora approaches. 

“Wait, Namine!”

Namine? Who’s that, she thinks, but then again, she knows well how easily someone’s connected memory can change her appearance. Trying not to be ‘caught’, however, Xion turns to leave- but he grasps her hand, desperately pleading for her to stay. Sora, Sora, Sora, she thinks, and then,  _ Roxas.  _

“Huh? Who… who are you?” Did she change again?

Does Roxas remember me? Oh, this whole situation feels terrible now, though she doesn’t know why- pulling away from the grasp, she tries to run, but a voice fills her head. 

_ Let him chase you down the dream, puppet. _

Not that she really has a choice now, does she. She can’t stay there and just stare at him, and she’s already running, whether or not Sora decides to chase this ‘Namine’ isn’t really in her control- but suddenly, she’s jolting awake again, nearly wriggling out of Saix’s grasp.

“Oh, well, that good, was it?” He chastises her- and since it seems the game is over for Sora now, as he goes off chasing those dreams, suppose it’s time to get out of the window. 

****  
  


Before Xemnas can hit the ground, Ansem snaps him up and teleports him somewhat nearby, while Xehanort takes care of the rest of the Sora falling into sleep situation. 

Rasping from the ground, “An inch away from a sleep like death, and yet, still, I am here on the ground, bruised and beaten.”

Ansem kneels beside him, looking down with pursed lips of a man that is trying very, very hard not to make fun of him. Ultimately, because if it had been him faced with a desperate Sora, Ansem would’ve been the one with a kicked ass. “You did your task well, don’t feel bad.”

“Suppose it would have been worse if I had destroyed him,” he looks to Ansem, pained, “try explaining that to our Master later. Oh, sorry, after all that work, I destroyed the vessel,” he gestures alongside his words with his free hand.

“That would be kind of funny,” Ansem offers him a hand, hefting them both back to standing.

“This was too much effort and well executed timing to waste on poorly timed rage,” Xemnas grunts as he’s hefted up, clutching himself in pain. “Now, we wait for the inevitable in the round hall, yes?” But he looks to Ansem like he’s about to tell him otherwise. A sinking suspicion in the fact that Riku was still just barely out of this dream, and the fact Ansem isn’t sweating out of his skin.

“Waiting in the round hall, sure. Inevitable? You should know better by now,” Ansem hums, reaching a hand forwards to press palm to the injury hidden beneath Xemnas’ clutched arm and jacket, and in sharing energy, he begins to heal. They need to be ready for the aforementioned round hall ‘meeting’.

“Do not blame me for following in our Master’s footsteps of expectancy. And what if this goes ahead as he wills it, hmn?”

“Then it was fate, and I’ll accept that.”

“Really?” Xemnas looks at him with a soft sort of expression, eyebrows knitting just slightly.

“... I suppose? Do  _ you  _ have plans otherwise?”

A tired sigh, “No, not anymore.”

In a shadowstep, Xigbar appears, “HA!” Ansem flinches, Xemnas barely seems to notice, “That was a good one, Xemnas. ‘Always knew’ we were growing hearts, huh?”

“I knew several of you were growing hearts.”

“Not  _ yourself _ , though.”

“That was more of a dismissal of ignorance.”

“Eh? Just pretending?”

“I was trying very, very hard not to be affected by a heart. 

Ansem can't help but interject, "Listen, Xigbar, this entire event has been spent saying many things that blur themselves between accuracy or embellishing to make us all see a lot smarter than we are."

Xigbar snrks to that, stifling himself with a palm, “Well, good job anyways, Sora’s safely tucked into nap time, and we’re good to go. Coming with? Or are you nursing those bruises still?”

“Indeed, we are going.” Xemnas straightens, still a little sore, but nowhere near where he was some minutes ago. Enough that he’s not concerned he wouldn’t be able to defend himself from errant Riku’s, or perhaps, more than that. “Shall we?”

_ Wake up. _

Alright, well. That didn’t… turn out. Xemnas’ thoughts blur back into reality, slowly, silently. The World That Never Was did, in fact, awaken in time with Sora’s awakening- but he did not awake with Xehanort’s heart. It was a wholly unexpected experience while they were in the middle of a hurried little reconvening, and all who were still within the dream were flung out of it at random. Which is better than the alternative, which would’ve perhaps sunk them into that sleep Sora was ‘destined’ for; Xemnas had felt that shift in space before The World That Never Was awoken and moved back into reality, and bound all occupants to it long enough they were removed from sleep along with it. However, that did not mean they all returned to the realm of light. Xemnas awakens in a void, an expanse in a realm of darkness- or, rather, Nothing, he  _ knows _ this impossibly empty place, and while it seems much like a black void, it’s simply the eyes lack of comprehension for an absolute nothing that makes it seem black and dark. Looking down at his hands, he flexes his gloved fingers idly- still here, it seems, and a glimmer in his chest; at first, his own, and then Xehanort’s implanted piece. So, that interlude turned out as well as Ansem had thought it would, and it seems that the thirteenth vessel would continue not to be Sora. Now, does Xemnas have the strength to return to the realm of light to recoup their losses alongside the other vessels of darkness?

Having been injured before their dream faded away, no, Xemnas isn’t terribly interested in hauling his replica form back out of anywhere, and he hopes this _ thing _ of a body will hold its own existence in a place with no existence until he feels otherwise.

_ Don’t be lazy. _

“What else do I know how to be,” he speaks out loud to that inkling in his mind, and despite being casually teased, Xemnas lets his eyes lid, relaxing back into the nothing. It’s so nice, and quiet, and calm here. Empty. E m p t y. 

_ You stop that. _

His eyes flick open again when he feels the pressure of palms on his back, and when he looks up, Ansem’s in his face, looking down at him. Like they float in water, he pulls Xemnas’ back up onto his front, sneaking his arms beneath his armpits, and in a flash, pulls them both out of Nothing and into the realm of light, much to Xemnas’ audible complaint.

It’s a very harsh and sudden change, blinded out by the desert sun when he’s greeted to the Keyblade Graveyard, but to Ansem’s credit, he casually covers Xemnas’ eyes with gloved fingers as he lays there and reorients into existence. It also gives him a moment to realize the position they’re in, because his head is laid across Ansem’s lap as he sits there letting Xemnas lay and remember what living is like.

“Are you awake yet?” He hums down to him, spreading fingers enough a singular golden eye might peek through and peer up at his other.

“Indeed. Apparently, I faired poorly to my reawakening.”

“No one really woke up well after that sudden jostling of our consciousness. The youngest Xehanort is still frantically teleporting around and collecting all our poor, poor vessels. The eldest may be helping or putting out other fires.” To Ansem’s complete surprise, Xemnas face wrinkles in what Ansem thinks is distaste as first, but soon rumbles into barely contained laughter. Blinking down at him, “.... Are you broken?”

“Maybe a little,” Xemnas stifles himself as he attempts to sit up, a pained groan escaping him, “it was your use of the word ‘frantic’ that hit me... amused.”

Ansem almost can’t help but laugh with him, pressing a hand to his own face, “it is funny, yes. Are you telling me that your amusement is based on the suffering of others?”

“Is this a surprise?”

“It shouldn’t be, but it was. I think I’m just surprised at all you’re amused after all this.”

Now they both sit there, alone, surrounded by harsh sunlight and the remnant, destroyed keyblades of a war fought some thousand years ago. After a long, silent moment, Xemnas looks around curiously, like he’s looking for something in particular.

Ansem speaks, “Have you ever been here before?”

“Once or twice, on moments of strange instinct. I thought I might find something useful here.”

“Ahh… me neither, really. It was empty, and thus, was on no high list to be destroyed.”

“There is one thing here.”

“... there is?”

“Yes. An old will, but not a Nobody. I thought it was. It did not like me. I had to run from it.”

“You? Run?”

“It was very mad and powerful. But could not leave a certain area. Tied to the land by instinct. I feel, perhaps, I should warn Xehanort of its existence, but…”

“Would you... tell _ me  _ where it is?” Ansem asks curiously, also looking around to the sea of discarded blades. There’s no movement beyond the wind blowing up gusts of sand. 

“If you promise to leave it be.”

“Oh? Why for? Do you think it would kill me?”

“Or you, it. I think it is an excellent specimen of an existence beyond life, and I would rather it lives to fulfill whatever purpose it has.”

“That seems oddly noble of you.”

Xemnas shrugs, “Maybe there’s something else to it. I do not care to know.”

The youngest Xehanort appears in a flash, dropping Saix and Xion before the two other ‘norts, both to their audible surprise, before disappearing back into the void within less than a second.

After that shock, Xemnas nearly stutters, “Frantic indeed.” Slowly, he rises to his feet, wandering to the two discarded bodies laying prone in the dirt. Slowly, he pokes Saix with the tip of his boot. “I am not ready for you to be dead yet.”

Muffled, “No one seems ready for me to be dead yet.” He hefts his weight up onto his forearms, blinking the sand out of his eyes before peering up at Xemnas, and then to Xion beside. She has not moved, so Xemnas turns his attention to her, poke poke, no movement.

“She did enjoy sleeping, did she not.”

Saix nods, “She was having trouble the entire time in that dreaming place. I think, that close to Sora’s memories, it started blurring the lines.”

Reaching down, Xemnas snags her by an arm, but she still doesn’t seem interested in rising, so he just. Tucks her under his arm, so she isn’t left drooling in the dirt. “So, living in a graveyard, are we,” Xemnas rumbles back to Ansem.

Ansem nods, still sitting on the ground nearby. “Very comfortable, I know.”

“There are many worlds, we aren’t pinned to this location, are we?” Saix questions, watching as Xemnas just, manhandles the lifeless Xion around. 

“No, we could leave. Suppose we should wait for all to arrive to be assured of our numbers still.”

In another flash, the elder Xehanort appears and drops three more bodies onto the pile before disappearing- Luxord, Vexen, Larxene. Luxord seems content to lay face first on the ground, but Vexen and Larxene are immediately shrilling at each other. Ansem speaks to Xemnas’ thought before this situation had occurred, “Apparently, our numbers are at no risk.”

“So it seems. I am glad my efforts were not wasted.” In his grasp, Xion finally stirs, looking up and confused from beneath her hood to Xemnas.

“... oops?” she creaks, feeling too heavy to carry herself, so suppose she doesn’t mind too much Xemnas is holding her.

“Oops indeed. Not just from you,” she follows his line of sight to the pile of people ahead of them, as Larxene and Vexen dislodge themselves from each other and Luxord. “This entire situation was one big oops.”

The younger Xehanort reappears in a flash, “To none of your assistance!” He shrills, and drops Marluxia to his feet. 

“I helped exactly the amount you asked for my help. Beyond that, even- who would have expected Axel’s arrival?” Slowly, he looks down to Saix still discarded to the floor, but he is very occupied in staring at the ground. “Not to mention- if I had not grasped the world as it awoken, you would’ve all fallen to that death like sleep.”

Xehanort has no rebuttal to this, looking over the heads collected to see who he is missing, and disappears once more.

A moment of silence before Luxord speaks, sitting up on his ass and immediately, nervously, shuffling cards. “He seems incredibly mad.”

“So is our Master,” Xemnas hums, having only really seen him for a flash of a second there, but he definitely… felt. The rage. “Should we be helping them?” He looks to Ansem behind him.

“Me, maybe, but you weren’t interested in waking either, so I would not send you into the void again.” Ansem shrugs.

“True.”

“So, who are we still missing?”

“Ahh..” Xemnas looks around to count. Himself, Ansem. Saix, Xion. Luxord, Larxene, Vexen. Marluxia…. “Xigbar, Demyx, and that child, Vanitas, that avoids us like the plague.”

Because scaring the two ‘norts is apparently, very amusing, a keyblade comes from the heavens and implants itself violently into the ground with a resounding clank of metal, before the aforementioned child appears in a shadowstep, perched atop his blade. “I’ve been here the whole time,” he cocks up a leg to prop his elbow on, and his chin to his palm. 

Very slowly, Xemnas looks to the helmeted teen, “Ah, quick to rise, are we.”

“I just, woke up here. This, is my home.”

An eyebrow raises in minute confusion, “This is not much of a place to call home.”

“What a great observation that does, absolutely nothing to change the facts.”

“Indeed, it does not. So, Demyx, Xigbar-” and in a flash, Xigbar appears with Demyx under his arm. 

“Whoa! Uh… Hello,” Demyx sputters, trying to find his legs beneath him, but Xigbar floats nowhere near ground, completely unamused.

“Great. Great! Everything is great,” despite his apparent extremely bad mood, he does lean down to drop Demyx a foot away from ground rather than just dropping him several feet up where he stands air-grounded in a barely contained rage.

“Well, we’re not dead,” Ansem speaks up at him, still sitting with legs crossed. In their weakness, it seems like most of the new XIII are opting to sit on the ground until otherwise instructed, Luxord still shuffling cards, Marluxia scooting his ass over to where Larxene sits.

“We  _ might as well be _ ,” Xigbar absolutely hisses, dusting off his coat ends and completely inverting so he can tap a foot on the not-air he stands on. 

Another moment, and both Xehanort reappear.

The eldest speaks to his remaining pile of vessels, stepping down onto the ground with restrained elegance. “Such is the nature of fate. If it was not to be then, it will be for later. Calm yourself, and your impatience.”

Rumbling, Xigbar tries to contain himself for his boss. “I’m sorry I’m  _ impatient-  _ it’s been a  _ real _ long time.”

“And I’m sure it has,” the elderly man gives the upside down Xigbar a very discerning look, “but time will come. There is no escaping it. I might’ve preferred to have Sora’s vessel in my grasp- but it is not  _ necessary _ . I have learned much from this event,” he nods to himself, eyes lidding, that rage Xemnas and Ansem had felt earlier abating as the mastermind muses through his next options. “We have some time to prepare.”

Vexen shrills, “All my research is in the castle! Where am I supposed to  _ work. _ ” Which receives him a very sharp look from Xehanort, immediately shrinking down his posture, but the eldest replies.

“The world is not lost. It is dislodged in space, but it is not unfindable.”

Demyx replies to that, laying flat down in the sand with his arms crossed above his head. “Man, that sounds stupid.”

“You were literally just sleeping there,” Xigbar barks down to him.

“How were we sleeping if we were just like, straight up there.” Slowly, Xigbar lowers from his still inverted position, unseen as Demyx had shut his eyes, but he gets the surprise of Xigbar’s hands wrapped around his mouth and neck.

“SSsssshhhhhhhhh,” though Demyx is struggling now.

“Yes, shh,” Xehanort replies, rolling his eyes. “I need time to collect my thoughts. Feel free to do what you will- I know well how to find you if I need you.” And with that, the eldest disappears, the youngest shortly after.

Another long, long silence, while no one feels the effort to speak.

“Welcome to the keyblade graveyard,” Vanitas barks to break the silence, gesturing towards the area around them, “We have beautiful views of rocks, and dirt. To your left, you’ll see the dirt, and your right, the rocks. We enjoy such cuisines as, dirt. And like, dead keyblades, if you’re into that.”

Ansem finally moves to stand, hefting up his weight while he rubs his face with both hands. Muffled, “We’re not obligated to stay here,” unmuffled, “we all know how to travel corridors still, yes?” No one disagrees. “You two,” he points to Larxene and Marluxia, who look up at the fact they’re being singled out. “Bored?”

“... Sure,” Marluxia replies, raising a brow. “Giving us things to do already? I thought the old man said he was collecting his thoughts.”

“I prefer being proactive, and I can guess the back-up plans that are brewing. Without Sora, we need back-ups, and what _ I  _ know, is Princesses of Heart. There should be 7 new ones, so we should start looking.”

Marluxia nods to that, giving Larxene a glance, but she just throws up her hands, dejected, “Whatever! Better than staying up in this stuffy, hot desert.”

Again, Vexen interrupts, “I-I, I tried to go to The World That Never Was, but it’s moving very, quickly,” he stammers up to Xemnas, struggling to stand. “It’s not as easy to reach as Xehanort was implying.”

“Suppose I will go catch my wandering world, then,” Xemnas sighs, readjusting Xion’s weight in his grasp. “Care to join me?” He’s not sure why he’s… asking, her. 

“Uwa? Me?” she looks up, having gotten comfortable being prone in Xemnas’ grasp.

“Yes.”

“... Can I ask why?”

“Keyblades are good for routing down worlds.”

“Oh! Of course I will come,” she nods, but still looks down to Saix for confirmation. Just barely, he nods to her in response. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> if parts of this dont completely align with ddd, just assume i'm bending the timeline for my own elicit wills


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this plot got decimated by re:mind but sometimes you gotta just Keep Trucking

“She has been with your younger for the past week, and he says he has faced no ill feelings to her intrusion. Though she did not form her own of his keyblade, he was quite startled to find one day that she’d simply stolen it.” Xemnas looks down at the hooded top of Xion’s head, her hands stuffed into her sleeves as she stares down at the floor under the discerning eye of the oldest Xehanort ahead of her.

“So, her programming a success, then?” The eldest tilts on his heels to look down at her face, but she seems so shy of him. Behind his back, finger flex idly. 

“So it seems. I can easily extract this programming and implement it into the next series of replicas that Vexen is producing for your 12 final vessels.”

Contented by this fact, that at least  _ one _ of their plans was going smoothly now, Xehanort nods with a small growing smile on his face as he stares down at the two blue eyes that finally deign stare up at him in restrained fear. “That is _ very good _ to hear. This thing now, though, does she retain any use on her own?” His question seems harsh, but there’s a tone in his voice that leads Xemnas to believe he has his own plans for her now.

“That is for you to decide,” he responds in time to his thoughts, idly brushing a hand over her head.

“I am without several initial vessels, still. This one- she had once copied Sora, yes?”

“She had.”

“Then, in the meantime, I would use her instead of him, lest we do come to claim the other boy in time.”

Xemnas leans on his heels to look over her shoulder at her, and she cranes her neck to look back at the sound of movement. Since being a ‘vessel’ seems to be the only option in sparing her existence- she has no complaints to this, but still looks between the two of them curiously. Xemnas speaks, “Her loyalty has so far been steady in the lead of Saix’s performance.”

“And since I have secured Saix’s loyalty, I think this will fit nicely,” Xehanort nods to himself again, pulling his hands from behind his back to press palms together, focusing a piece of his heart to impart upon the not-Sora before him. 

It’s incredibly overwhelming, she thinks, but tries to keep her cry of discomfort muted between clamped shut lips, and when she shakes out her head in distaste, her eyes re-open to that telling gold, her expression awash with  _ placation _ . Unconsciously, she feels herself copying over those memories of Xehanort’s as her programming peruses over a _ much closer  _ piece of heart. Another shake of her head, and Xehanort gets to watch as her programming rolls off her initial form, and into one more closely aligned with  _ his  _ memories.

“... Why does she look like that,” Xehanort rumbles under his breath, reaching over to snag a black bang hanging over her eyes. “I thought she turned into what memories she held.”

Xemnas, unfortunately, doesn’t recognize the form she’s taken- but since it looks nothing like Xehanort, he takes a stab at guessing. “Her normal form is that of Sora’s most important memories, but shrouded, so she looks akin to the boy’s childhood friend.”

Xehanort’s eyes squint in distaste to what he sees, still with those infected, gold eyes, but an anciently familiar young friend still stares back up at him from behind the lip of her hood. “Stop that.”

She raises defensive hands, expression distraught, “I don’t even know what I’m doing..!” Balling her hands into fists, and shutting her eyes with focus, she tries to draw herself away from Xehanort’s memories, and in a moment, shakes out to being ‘Xion’ once again.

“It is to be expected, with your heart’s piece memory ingrained in her body,” Xemnas finds himself sticking up for her, albeit restrainedly, “I will take out that part of her copying to stop her from becoming overwhelmed with ‘gifts’ such as this, and also to keep her from perhaps accidentally stealing either your or your youngest’s keyblades in any moments of fury.”

“That would be wise.”

“I think I would like to keep you with that copy of Saix, though, since you went through all the effort of stealing it.” 

“I don’t mind,” she mumbles back up, still flexing out her fingers as she focuses on  _ not _ focusing on Xehanort’s memories, despite its attempts to take over her body.

Xehanort hums to that, a second thought interrupting him, “On thoughts of Sora, however. After you are finished preening the programming of your replica here, I would like you to go see how that boy is fairing now in his weakness since nearly falling to our offered sleep. Perhaps he is in a position to fall once again, hmn?”

“I can see how he is fairing,” but his nose wrinkles in distaste to this. He would far rather destroy him while they have the chance to do so. There’s no point in keeping him alive as a vessel, when they would be far better off stripping him from the picture early. 

As if he can hear Xemnas’ errant thoughts, “We need those protectors of light as equally as I need vessels of darkness,” Xehanort rumbles up at his most unwieldy shard of himself. “Sora must either be a shard of light, or a shard of darkness. This, is fated.”

“That is ill advised,” but Xehanort is quick to interrupt him.

“Do you think you’ll fair better blindly to fate than myself, who knows it quite intimately?” Slowly, Xion catches the sparks between them, and slinks behind Xemnas rather than be in the middle.

“You can not blame me for seeing the holes in your perception of fate, after our most recent excursion.”

“What you think are holes are merely micro-movements in time that I can easily correct for. What I know for sure is set in stone, however. I have told you the outcomes in this fight, and I have not been incorrect.”

“You once claimed Sora would be your vessel, at that ‘destined’ time-”

“No, _ I,  _ did not.”

Xemnas opens his mouth to retort, but goes over the memory in his head. No, the youngest Xehanort had claimed this. Slowly, his mouth shuts again, lips pursed. 

“So eager to claim you are not the same as me, and in the same thought, mistake me for my youngest. Begone now, you fickle,  _ empty _ thing. Take your other half with you to see how Sora is faring, and lead him in a thought where he might be more inclined to either join us, or fight us tooth and nail.”

\---

Ansem catches Saix one afternoon, sitting alone for once, in the low light of the living room. He’s comfortable enough to be rid of his jacket, but he’s got the table covered in papers, casually perusing some of Vexen’s newest work, of all things, intertwined with what of Xemnas’ older research that he could glean. His head tilts upwards and over his shoulder to the sound of the door opening, stiffening at the thought of a few choice people to interrupt his research, but doesn’t seem to know what to do with Ansem at the doorway. 

“Keeping busy, I see.” Ansem wasn’t here for any particular thing, constantly waiting for things to do in the meantime of Xehanort recouping his losses.

“What else is there to be done,” he shrugs, looking back to his work as Ansem doesn’t take the hint, and continues entering. If Saix truly wanted not to be bothered, he should be working in his room.

“Care to tell me what you’re up too?” He hums, waltzing up to the back of the couch to peer over at what Saix is looking over so dutifully.

“I don’t care to, but I will because I doubt you’ll leave me alone if I don’t,” Saix rasps, tapping a frustrated finger over his work.

“Very smart.”

“I try. Vexen asked for a second set of eyes on some new-generation Replicas he is working on.”

“And this is something you do?” Ansem questions, only vaguely aware of Isa’s work in his old master’s lab.

“Apparently. When him and Zexion bit the dust, I took up in their stead for Xemnas’ sake.”

“And no Xemnas to look over these schematics?”

“You don’t know?” Saix gives him a mocking look, as he sees the two of them often working alongside one another for whatever benefit they have.

“No, I’ve been leaving him be since he’d strained to re-plant this world.”

“Ah. He’s been with Master Xehanort, parsing out the eldest’s plan with his copy-Replicas, taking apart Xion again for some purpose.” Saix gaze averts momentarily, nose wrinkling in strain. Ansem was going to question why he was without his little replica partner, but receives the answer without asking.

Ansem nods to that, rounding the couch to get a better look, but meets with Saix’s gaze when the other man bristles to his approach. “Then it’s fair that I am not exactly a part of that conversation, as I know little of the minute details of that particular plan.”

“And yet, here you are, peering over my shoulder and reading over Vexen’s work.”

“To bother you, of course. Maybe I’d like to know better, since my fate is quite sunk into the hands of this work. The implication I’m getting, however, that these replicas here,” he leans down to brush apart a few pages, “are different than what Xehanort is working on. I’m curious as to why?”

Saix seems to freeze just a touch to that, but catches himself before he shows too many nerves. Slowly blinking up at him, “I wouldn’t know. I’m just keeping myself busy. Vexen has already mentioned that his compliance to Xehanort’s plan hinges on his continued research in his replica program. He seems to forget the part where the universe will soon expire.”

“I would be a liar to say I don’t also fondly forget this.” Snagging a page or two under Saix’s nose, Ansem reads over some of the work- but as he said, it isn’t his experience, so he doesn’t get much from it, other than these replicas seem very much more advanced than the body he’s currently piloting. “These seem awfully nice.”

“He wants them to be something so akin to humanity, that you’d hardly be able to tell the difference.”

“Someone from the outside couldn’t tell the difference, or the inside?”

“Both. The heart could slip in so easily, it wouldn’t question the frame.”

“Ohh,  _ that _ sounds incredibly welcoming.”

Saix scoffs to that, though, giving him an incredulous look, “You think you’ll be spared one of these new bodies, hmn?”

“I suppose I won’t necessarily need it due to the aforementioned expiration? I am more than used to this one, at this point.”

“Then whose welcome are you implying?”

“I’m certain there are still some out there with no bodies at all. In fact, I’m certain there are,” Ansem breaks into a wild, cruel smile, “by my hand, swarms of Heartless without bodies. Vexen could fill himself an army, if he wished.”

“If he wishes this. I wouldn’t claim to understand what he wants.” But Saix’s posture is still stiff, Ansem catches those microscopic pushes of emotion he desperately keeps under wraps. Something has his hackles still raised, and Ansem is infinitely curious.

So, he somewhat changes the topic. “And what do you want, Saix?”

A confused eyebrow raises, Saix’s head tilting just a touch. “What do… _ I  _ want?”

“Yes. Why are you here?”

Dryly, “Your other made me here despite my complaints.”

“Scorn me for not taking you as so simple. You’re under no arrest to stay, able to travel corridor; I’m sure there’s a multitude of nooks and crannies you could stuff yourself into if you truly were dissuaded from staying. But, here you are. Not only here, but doing work, and often.”

Slowly, Saix looks down to his hands, flexing fingers over open palms, feeling the creasing of rough callouses between his joints as he swallows, roughly, and thinks. “Xehanort… He’s, promised me something,” he barely rasps over his breath.

“Mn? And you won’t tell me what?”

“I… Suppose… No, you will know. There was a girl, in the basement of Ansem’s lab. The Wise, not,  _ you. _ ” Ansem nods to that, but with a gestured hand, asks Saix to continue, “It is why I ever worked with ‘you’ in the first place, yes?”

“I remember this well. You worked well for our old Master in order to become closer to his most valuable prisoner.”

Very softly, “but where did she go, Xehanort.” Xehanort, to the man standing in front of him, not the old man who had promised to help him find what happened to her fate.

Ansem’s brows furrow when he thinks about it, golden gaze averting to the side. “A few days after I’d asked our master to continue my experiments into her and my own memory, she disappeared. I could never convince him to tell me what he had done with her. He never stopped insisting it was none of his doing, but I know he was lying.”

“And now,” Saix rasps, “he is dead.”

But Ansem hums a tone to that, “I fear, or I don’t fear now, for your sake, no he is not.”

“What?” Saix looks up at him sharply, eyebrows furrowed. “How would you know this?”

“He’s an incredibly difficult individual to kill, ‘we’ have thrown him into the Nothing before, and he found himself walking out eventually, against impossible odds. I couldn’t tell you exactly where Ansem the Wise lies at this very moment, but I feel closely,” he presses a hand to his chest, “he is not dead. Suppose, if your loyalty is earned by knowledge of the fate of this girl, I might find myself the time pay him a visit.”

Saix has no words for this, but Ansem does not need them- he sees it in Saix’s desperate expression, breaking through his facade of strength and fortitude. His golden eyes creasing at the edges in pain, before he can’t help but cast his gaze downwards to the table of papers. So very quietly, “I have nothing else to do anymore but this.”

“It’s something for me to do,” Ansem replies calmly, before turning towards the door, leaving Saix to his torment. 

\---

Before Ansem can get too ahead of himself, however, Xemnas appears upon him in a hallway, already aggravated from the Xehanort on high and the newest set of news he’s been imparted with. “Sora is on his legs.”

“Rather than on his hands?” Ansem tests his temper, but receives the most biting look in response, so he tries to keep himself more contained, arms folding across his chest.

“We’re too keep a momentary eye on him as he travels, and I am informed by dusks he heads to Twilight Town with his two inhuman friends.” Oh, good, no Riku to bother them.

“Just an eye?” He would be surprised if they’re not to interrupt him and his intrepid group of friends as they travel.

“Yes,” he waves a dismissive hand, “Something about fate. Xehanort still finds himself allured by the idea of having his body as a vessel, and wants us to impart some knowledge upon him to sway his favor. Then again, it depends on what he’ll do once he sees us.”

“Eager for some revenge?”

“Maybe,” Xemnas hums, pulling a hand forwards to open a corridor for the two of them, waiting for Ansem to lead ahead.

“This is admittedly somewhat fortuitous for myself. I have something I’d like to explore in Twilight Town.” At Xemnas’ offering, Ansem does take a step through the corridor, only straining slightly to the compression of darkness it offers. 

“Is that right? And what business would you have there?” Xemnas questions, just behind his heel as they walk the long distance into the darkness between the newly rooted World that Never Was and Twilight Town. 

“Personal business,” Ansem still can’t help but tease, looking over his shoulder at his other. Xemnas lets a long moment of silence linger while he mulls over whether he cares or not to push the subject, and to Ansem’s distaste, Xemnas continues not to speak. “It’s like that today, huh?”

“I have been busy with our Master’s askings. Forgive that I am not interested in whatever interlude you’re playing at, at the moment.” Xemnas' patience for Xehanort’s whims is paper thin in comparison to Ansem, it seems, and he continues to take mental note of this.

“I’ll offer you goals without making you beg, then. There’s a mansion I’m familiar with there, in which our old master found himself.”

“So there is,” Xemnas is aware, “and you seek something of his?”

“I seek _ him _ .”

“...He will not be there,” Xemnas scoffs, “He is quite… apart.” Nearly, he laughs to this thought, remembering ‘fondly’ when he had exploded himself alongside his Kingdom Hearts.

Rolling his eyes, Ansem retorts, “I know he will not be there, but I have a feeling in me that he is  _ somewhere _ .”

“That is a strange feeling to have, indeed. And you are sure of this?”

“Not, _ ‘sure’ _ , no. But I’d like to have a conversation with him, if I can manage to uproot him from his hiding holes.”

“Ah. His ‘last’ recent act is why I am here, suffering in this place, with you, in the first place. I will take no part in whatever relations with him you’re interested in.”

“That’s fine, I’m not going to ask you to. Except, that, you might join me in his old, discarded mansion, and we might aggravate his computer until it might give me some knowledge to his whereabouts.”

“I hope, then, for your sake, that Sora is not interested in being in the same place you are,” at the end of this walk, Ansem opens up a corridor to a brighter, sunny forest, eagerly sipping up the clean air it provides- enough that Xemnas is bumping into his back to force him out of the doorway. “ _ What are you doing _ ,” he rasps, the corridor behind him closing nearly on his ass before Ansem takes a step forwards.

“Apologies- enjoying myself. The World that Never Was is very.. stagnant, don’t you think?”

“I do not think either,” he steps sharply around to face him, giving Ansem a sharp look with half-lidded eyes.

“Have you traveled elsewhere since we’ve arrived?”

“Nowhere beyond the graveyard or the sleeping realms, and as that time becomes further from now, the more it finds itself fading from memory.”

Ansem tilts a head to that, an eyebrow raised. “That’s… somewhat strange to hear.”

“The pale remnants of my infantile heart hold little chains to the memory of dreams,” Xemnas replies flatly, and not interested in that conversation, begins a leisurely walk towards the mansion. He’s never been there, actually, only having heard of it from Axel’s last reports, and after losing Roxas entirely to Sora’s existence, paid the ‘hidden’ laboratory no mind in favour of his own machinations. Ansem was always aware of it, but equally uninterested in what his old Master had been up to in the wake of his usurpation. 

“I can suppose that makes sense, albeit troublesome.”

“Why so? That interlude was a failure. If anything that occurred then matters, I am certain between you and Xehanort, no required details will be forgotten.”

“Do you truly not care for your forgotten memories?” Ansem questions, pacing a few steps forwards in order to walk beside him rather than behind, but Xemnas does not turn to meet his gaze.

“What difference would it make if I  _ cared? _ ” but his expression looks so barely pained, so little that anyone other than Ansem or Xigbar would never note the difference.

“You spend so much time claiming that the heart is nothing but a blight on your existence, but here you are, forgetting things with your lackluster chains of memory.” Ansem doesn’t mean to sound so cruel, but the words spill from him heartlessly, sneering as he paces alongside.

Xemnas stops to that, and turns sharply, a cold gaze leveling on Ansem so uncharacteristically foreboding that it has him taking a step back. “And here you are, instead, caring for memories that are _ not even yours.  _ Keep your emotions to yourself,  _ heart _ , and I’ll keep my memories to mine.”

Ansem can’t help but roll his eyes to that, “are you even aware of what you’re saying,  _ or doing _ ?”

“Stop assuming I know nothing of my emotions.”

“I just want you to admit you have them.”

“Ohh, yes, I am _ very aware _ , thank you,” and he turns again, towards the mansion. Despite walking away from him, he continues to speak, “How do you comprehend this as a problem, that I take these unneeded impulses and push them to the side where they can not affect me?”

It takes him a moment to keep pace up behind him, but Ansem makes his way back up to his side, “I am waiting for them _ to _ affect you.”

“You will be waiting a long while,” he responds low in his throat. In their wake, a brooding bubble of darkness spreads from the corridor they traveled through, and the bottled rage Xemnas had forced back into the darkness. Ansem gives the brooding darkness a look over his shoulder, but Xemnas pays it no mind, continuing on. Well, he did say Sora was heading here. Perhaps he’d like something to play with while the two ‘norts poke around an old mansion. More and more, Ansem finds, those spirals of darkness were spawning. Perhaps the darkness feels the wake of Xehanort’s war on the horizon, and is posturing itself. 

\---

They do not speak again until they’re in the basement, Xemnas tapping very cautiously through this foreign computer's prompts, careful not to alert any outside connections or sources it might hold. “This is a dead-end,” he hums after a long while of glancing through lists and lists of prompts struck with ‘NO DATA AVAILABLE’ or ‘DATA CORRUPTED’. “He has purged his system in the wake of his leave, or all else made it beyond my grasp without outside intervention.”

Ansem hums to that, leaning over his shoulder with a squint. “Have we learned anything from this excursion?”

“No. This is simply where he took Roxas in order to part him from Sora’s stolen memories.”

“Ah? How did he manage that?”

“He had digitized his form, digitized the memories, and used code and Namine to recomplete them.”

“That seems needlessly complicated.”

“It might have been, but our old master did many things in this round-about kind of way, did he not?”

“This is true. So, we need someone else to play with this computer first. Sora, perhaps?”

“What would he have with this old place?”

“Well, perhaps we should check in on him and see if we can’t herd him in a direction we could find useful. It would be easier for him to give us an idea of what he’s doing and decide based on that rather than pick pieces out of nothing.”

Xemnas nods to that, “Suppose it is time for us to actually do the job we were tasked to do, hmn?”

“It might be wise.” First, however, Xemnas locks the computer shut, forcing any interlopers to require outside assistance to make any headway. He’s unsure of who is at Radiant Garden to assist, but Ienzo should be there, alongside Dilan and Aeleus, and one of the three of them should be able to do  _ something. _

\---

After some short taunting and Roxas mentioning later, Ansem and Xemnas stand atop of a roof like aloof mother fuckers, staring down at those deigned to be herded into submission. As Xigbar joins them, however, they all watch in restrained silence as Sora and crew head off towards their next adventure, content in the fact that perhaps, Roxas would be brought forwards once more, either offering them another shard of light, or in the wake of Sora’s failure, that dark vessel. 

Now, Ansem and Xemnas looming on the rooftop had already cleared out most of the townsfolk, so none of them expect to be interrupted at all, let alone by a tiny voice at Xigbar’s heel. He startles to this, physically when he legs hikes up and audibly when he yelps at the silence being broken, before staring down at the wide eyes of a little girl peering up at him without a hint of fear. “Excuse me…” she sputters politely, and slowly, both Ansem and Xemnas turn to look over at the attention Xigbar has apparently gotten himself.

They all take a long moment to respond, thinking about whether the three of them wanted ‘young child murder’ on their plates for today. Xigbar, since he’s closest, unfortunately had the ‘responsibility’ to reply. “Yyyyyeeeees?”

“You’re really tall!”

… Slowly, he nods, “That is, true, yes. Do you. Want something?”

Ansem speaks as well, “Hasn’t your mother told you not to talk to strangers….”

But she doesn’t seem to notice his scolding. “My brother threw my ball up on a ledge,” she turns to peer up at the bubbled windows behind them, and sure enough, there’s a ball up there. “Can you reach it?”

“... I mean, I  _ could _ ,” Xigbar scoffs, looking over at it. A moment to glance over to the other two, but neither of them seem interested in ‘helping’ him. They watch as he goes through the motions of deciding whether to ignore her, or to punt her off the edge of the building, and patiently, she waits. Now, does he actually need to posture his ‘darkness’ in front of these two?

In a shadowstep, Xigbar is inverted above the windows, snagging the ball much to the girl's audible surprise. He ‘walks’ towards them again, still inverted in the air, however, and holds it above her, just slightly out of reach. “Hey! That’s not fair! Now you’re tall and you're cheating!”

“What! Being tall is in your favour. I wouldn’t be so close if I was shorter.” When she puts her hands back down in frustration, however, he releases his grasp, and the ball bonks her directly on the head before bouncing off and away. 

“Oof- thank you!” Still, he receives a thanks, even as she skitters away after its bouncing, and Xigbar hangs there, looking back to the two who’d silently watched this occur. Xemnas looks completely unmoved, but Ansem is trying desperately to contain his disdain.

“What was  _ that. _ ”

“What! You wanted me to kick her off the roof, didn’t you.”

“You could’ve just ignored her.”

“I don’t know if you’ve ever ignored a kid before- but it doesn’t work. They just nag and whine and scream, until you do what they want or kill them.”

“Then you could’ve kicked her off the roof.”

“I don’t want to make a scene!”

Xemnas interjects dryly, “You are still upside down. Also, we made a scene simply arriving earlier by corridor.”

“That sounds like a ‘you’ problem, boss. Ex-boss.” And yet, there he still hangs, inverted, crossing his arms over his chest and eyes lidding in thought. “Who wants ice cream?”

“I do not want ice cream,” Xemnas turns back towards the restaurant below them, looking around to be certain all familiar interlopers had moved on, if Xigbar was planning to go down there.

“I… kind of want ice cream,” Ansem mumbles, rubbing the underside of his jaw with an open palm.

“Well, I won’t get it for you, but you can come down with me,” and in a flash, Xigbar rights himself, and casually turns to head down to ground level, waiting momentarily for the other two to join him. Xemnas, however, stays on the roof to watch. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> saix, to vexen later, 'i accidentally sicked xehanort's heartless on ansem'  
> vexen: 'you did W H A T'  
> saix: 'ssshhhh just help me'
> 
> ansem, to xemnas, right before sora walks up: 'ok, i know you're mad, but game face. we have to be big, smart mother fuckers so he knows who's boss'  
> xemnas: gently slapping his face to hype himself up, 'game face. i am the epitome of darkness and emptiness'  
> ansem: 'thats the spirit'


	6. Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> in the series 'you broke time', i suggest reading 'tapping pulse' before this chapter, as this is where chronologically it occurs.

Thirteen, now. So, the end comes. Ansem catches the Riku replica skittering around like a cat- but ultimately, in that same catty way, he’s not interested in giving his old ‘mentor’ any time of day. Not that he requires to give the boy any amount of talking to, but he’s becoming genuinely interested in hearing about what else the other members of their new organization have to say on any matter. One morning comes where, in desperation, Xehanort gives life to ‘Terra’s’ lifeless body, but as the eldest worried of him, the coming creature is nothing but uncontrollable rage mixed with bouts of ‘unexplained’ vacancy, where Ansem finds it obvious he’s contorted with internal torment. Specifically, when Ansem becomes around him, that Terra-Xehanort, and another rage surfaces when his Guardian rumbles un-called for from the darkness. So, that conversation is struck from the books. But what about the Sora-looking-boy, who is apparently before Sora’s existence?

He’s hard to find, but Ansem’s knowledge of the reborn worlds leaves him apt at finding mis-placements in them. A world, recovering from the ravages of war, whispers of a shadow that slinks around with a hoard of beasts in his wake, and Ansem finds himself one night on a high, decorated rooftop, where two pseudo teenagers sit and watch a starry night sky.

“You look like you’re waiting for something,” his voice rumbles through the silence- Riku flinches, but Vanitas just looks over his shoulder, knowing full well of the other darkness infested being’s arrival long before he speaks.

“We are,” Vanitas responds dryly, looking to his cohort as he valiantly attempts to pretend he didn’t jump. “You looking for something?”

“I was looking for you.”

A slow, methodical blink, and a look back to his friend, who sneers at Ansem’s audacity. “And what do you want? I’m not going to listen to any orders from you,” Riku hisses, waving a dismissive hand and looking back to the sky.

“No, no orders. I wonder though, what you two _should_ be doing, instead of looking at an empty sky.”

“I already got kicked out of my place by Sora,” Vanitas shrugs, “didn’t think I needed to re-place myself anywhere. It’s close to the end now.”

Riku huffs, “I’m done doing my work, no thanks to Sora too.”

“He is quite like that, isn’t he.”

“A pain in the ass, through and through,” Riku continues barking, “things never change.”

Since they haven’t actually told Ansem to leave yet, he steps towards, looming behind them as he stays standing; he can’t help but stare up at the stars as they do. A sea of them, overshadowed barely by the city lights beneath them, but the brightest still shine through with a fury, drawing stories in the night between their connections. “Why this world above any others? Why not your dusty graveyard? The stars would be clearest there,” Ansem speaks down to Vanitas, but his gaze remains up.

“They would, the stars.” Vanitas nods, giving Ansem a glance over his shoulder. He’s sitting reclined backwards on his elbows, so its not hard to look behind at the taller, still standing man. “We’re not here to look at stars, though.”

“Waiting for something?”

“You could say that.”

“You enjoy being obtuse.”

“To certain people, absolutely.”

Riku stifles a laugh, “Xehanort people.”

“Ah, I see,” Ansem laughs lowly under his breath, “I am, unfortunately, a ‘Xehanort’ people.”

“Unfortunately? Why else are you here, if you’re ‘unfortunate’ to be that?” Riku cranes his head back to stare at him incredulously, still sneering.

Now, Ansem decides to look downwards to the copy of his wayward plan-ruiner. “Ohh, you should know well how the strings of fate pull us to our destiny, young Riku.”

“Pfft, you wish I was Riku,” he scoffs.

“Well, who are you, then?”

He opens his mouth to respond, but it closes again, eyes squinting shut as he thinks. “Maybe I am Riku! But I’m not ‘your’ Riku. We can both be Riku.”

“You can. Many people share names.” You know, since.. Ansem, and Ansem.

Vanitas exhales a laugh, “And I guess that’s how you’re an ‘unfortunate’ Xehanort people?”

He’s either the name stolen Ansem, or the name stolen Xehanort, what a shame. “I could agree to this statement, yes.”

As Vanitas opens his mouth to speak again, the sky interrupts them as it alights in fire, causing both Riku and Ansem to flinch, but Vanitas remains planted in his sitting, lifting up from his reclined position just slightly. His eyes widen in bright amusement, but not to the reaction of the other two, only fully invested in the way the sky is suddenly exploding with light.

“Fucking-“ Riku rasps, but looks up alongside to the sky after the initial jump. His eyes are full of restrained wonder as well, but not half as much as Vanitas looks enraptured.

Ansem has seen fireworks before, many times, and they’re nothing compared to even basic magic at his hands disposal. He’s still somewhat interested, though, because who doesn’t enjoy a free lightshow- but again, as Vanitas seems to brighten so visibly under the explosions overhead, Ansem can’t help but be a little more interested than he’d think to be. The way the sound of them reverberates in his chest, the way they scream into the clouds before booming for miles and miles. They’re high up on the roof, so they get the greatest view imaginable, and these people do more than put on an aggressive display of fire.

“Ah, I see. Much better than stars,” Ansem speaks between the explosions, but Vanitas doesn’t seem to register.

Riku, however, replies, “I can’t believe they celebrate with earth-shattering explosions.”

“Beautiful, colourful explosions.”

“It’s a waste! They could be using it to decimate their enemies.”

“This world is without an enemy- at least for the moment. But they still enjoy the explosions. So why not continue to do what they will, without that enemy? Would you simply stop fighting if you had no one to fight?”

Riku curls his hand into a fist, flexing fingers as he stares at them and thinks. “I guess, why not.” Slowly, he looks to Vanitas, but he continues to be mentally removed from the situation. “I think he’s living someone else’s memories. Worse than me, somehow.”

To that, however, “They’re my memories,” Vanitas rasps, a hand wandering to his chest to clutch the space above his heart. “ _They’re mine_.”

Riku’s lips purse, eyes staring down to his boots. He mumbles, nearly unheard between the fireworks, “’Course they are, man.”

“You’ve seen fireworks, hmn?” Ansem asks, since despite the way he looks so entranced by the fireworks, Vanitas is paying attention.

“I have.” But he replies quietly, hoarse in his throat.

“When?”

“Long before you existed.”

“I do wonder your age,” since getting any information on him from Xehanort had proved a dead end, and his own patch-work memory of those times told him nothing before his initial bisection.

“It’s… complicated,” Vanitas sighs, still rubbing over his bisected heart. “It doesn’t matter anymore. Or it won’t, soon.”

Since he seems to be ‘enjoying’ himself as much as a darkness ridden child of hate can manage, Ansem lets him have this with no further prying. Alternatively- it’s been a while since he’s witnessed a good lightshow, and man, these people really knew how to throw a fire-related party. It lasts at least on hour, he swears, and by the end of it his ears are ringing, but beneath them in the city streets below, the citizens are cheering and chanting their festivities.

Riku sits still staring down at his boots, before giving Vanitas a half-lidded, pensive glance. Vanitas’ eyes slowly close as the light fades, and reclines past his elbows, fully laying on the cold, unforgiving roof. As his eyes reopen, though, he looks sharply to Ansem still standing above him. “What do you want.”

“To see what you were doing.”

“You have seen. Now what?”

“To ask what _you_ want.”

“What does it matter what we want?” he includes Riku in with a ‘we’, giving his cohort a look.

“I’m curious,” Ansem shrugs, gesturing with an open palm.

“Don’t ruin this for me, _other Xehanort,_ ” Vanitas hisses, “I don’t know what you’re planning, or what you want to do. _Don’t ruin this for me_.”

“It’s hard to ruin what I don’t know.”

“It’ll be over soon. I’m enjoying it now while I can- but then it’ll be _over_.”

“Tired, mn?”

Vanitas’ closes his eyes again, squinted hard shut and shaking his head, “You don’t even have an inch of understanding to how tired I am.”

“I might not, but I know quite personally someone who does.”

“I bet he’ll say the same thing to you. Keep your nose out of it, for once.”

Riku huffs, “I don’t think he’s capable of that.”

“Not really, no. I thrive in my ability to stick my fingers in every situation I can,” but Ansem still stares down at him, head tilted in the barest hints of pity. Just laying back and ready to die.

“What, you think if this goes wrong, if I’m still up on my legs, I’ll be loyal to you or something?” Vanitas scoffs.

Ansem sighs to that, “That could be something that occurs. Or- you just hold onto those memories you so desperately claim are yours, and own them.”

“What do you care what I do with my memories if it isn’t to use me?”

“Life isn’t a series of black and white answers. I know you have no experience in such, but you may want to try.”

“I don’t need to try,” he laughs, pained and under his breath, throwing his arms behind his head. “I told you, other-Xehanort. It’ll be over soon.”

\--

It is a bitter, rainy night in the World that Never Was. Not that the rain affected the inhabitants of the castle much- but since those who remained were down to 3 or 4 people, all else exploring or biding their time elsewhere, not much of _anything_ in the world was relevant. It would be incorrect to say that this moment was ‘calm’, but it could be mistaken as such to the unopen eye, the only grounding thing the constant sound of water deluging every wall and window as it pours endless dark-infested rain down from a pitch black sky. Xemnas misses his moon terribly. Or, he would have missed his moon. Now, he feels only like he _might_ have.

Ansem tries to give him his space, as the days grow shorter to the end of Xehanort’s bleak plan and the pathways in time that end favourably for the two of them dwindle further and further into nothing. There’s no sense torturing him with the existence of his heart- Ansem himself or otherwise. But Ansem wakes with the strangest sensation in his chest this morning, like a hollow emptiness beyond his own old heart glimmering beneath his ribs, and it pains him all day as he worries about the castle with very little to do.

So, he goes to Xemnas, to question this pain. Xemnas is laying alone on the couch, reclined fully down the seats as if he’d been napping, but he’s awake, golden eyes pinned to the roof in the near-dark of the living room. Ansem enter silently, and wordlessly, but it isn’t as if Xemnas can’t simply feel his arrival. Not to mention he isn’t blind- a streak of white from the light of the hallway breaches into his self-imposed darkness, a blinding line of white that still only manages to restrict his pupils rather than flinch his eyelids. Only for a moment though, and then, Ansem is leaning over the back of the couch, staring down at him with faintly glowing yellow eyes. Discerning his empty-feeling other for a long, reflective moment.

“And what is this, hmn?”

Xemnas’ replies a low, monotonous tone, “What is what.”

Unconsciously, Ansem rubs a hand over the hollow, aching feeling in his chest. Quietly, “What have you done?”

“Why do you still continue to care?”

“It… hurts?”

“A pity for you.” Xemnas is still staring at the roof, past Ansem’s gaze, unmoving and unflinching. Something about his mannerisms seems even more stilted and empty than usual, and as he looks to his unwavering eyes, they seem hollow as well. Vacant and matte, lifeless. Empty.

Ansem rounds the couch now, ducking his head low as he looks his other over, “What did you do?” He repeats.

“I told you; it does not concern you.”

“I’m making it my concern,” he lingers at the arm rest now, pressing fingers into the cushion where Xemnas’ head rests, obscuring his vision fully as he stares upwards. For a moment, it still seems as if Xemnas isn’t necessarily _seeing_ Ansem, rather looking through him, but eventually he succumbs to the obscurity in his vision, and his eyes focuses to meet with his.

“I have taken control of myself again. I am without distraction.”

Ansem doesn’t immediately understand; he reaches out with that same unconscious hand, but rather presses it to Xemnas’ chest, and while he finds the physical press of existence on Xemnas’ form, something reads wrong. Nothing registers in darkness or light, no pseudo pulse captured in a replica form, no pale light flickering in pain. “.. You will just regrow it,” Ansem rasps, gaze adverting to the doorway as he tries to restrain his immediate response of _seething rage_.

“I will be dead by then.”

“How is your replica holding without-“

“There is no replica. I am, simply formed.”

Xemnas earns himself a few more pats on his chest for that- because Xemnas’ is definitely _there_. “How…”

“Existence is an extraordinary thing- but holds _nothing_ to non-existence. A heart can grow from nothing. Why not a body?”

Ansem raises an eyebrow, incredulous to the audacity of Xemnas saying that so plainly, and then explaining his confusion, “Because I would not have had so much trouble before I’d stolen a piece of Riku’s essence to simply _exist.”_

“You did not know how to live in nothing. I do. I know very well. I am weak now, but I will not be for long. This place of Nothing provides me limitless of its inexistence. Pieces of the shattered old resident of this timeline left himself behind, and I have been eagerly picking up the pieces where that other creature of rage and insanity could not capture. Not Terra, not Xehanort. _Myself_.”

Slowly, Ansem pulls back his hand, but instead of leaving Xemnas be, reaches down to weave gloved hands into the loose strands of his hair. He worries his touch into Xemnas scalp to try to raise a reaction from him, but he receives nothing. Pained and rasping in his throat, “Why do you hate your heart so.”

“I do not hate it any longer,” Xemnas rumbles in response.

“Why _did_ you hate your heart so,” Ansem corrects, not willing to pick that fight.

“Because it knew how to hate.” Xemnas gaze wanders to Ansem’s anxious touch wandering through his hair.

“They do this, yes.”

“It is not a gift.”

“Hatred powers the dark strength of a heart-“

But, he’s cut off by Xemnas sharply. “Or it will consume it.”

“Did you feel consumed?”

“Yes,” Xemnas replies honestly, looking back to the roof.

To save his spine from the pain of being so awkwardly hunched over, Ansem slowly kneels down to the floor, draping himself over the edge of the couch. Since Xemnas cannot feel at the moment, suppose Ansem will take advantage of his lack of nerves, settling his face close to his other. “You have given up, then,” he mumbles into the couch, dragging his fingers over the cusp of Xemnas’ chest, wrapping a finger around a hanging cord of his jacket hood to tug.

“What is there to give?”

“I don’t know,” Ansem rasps, “I only know I cannot help but try. I lament to say I’ve gotten very used to the feeling of having ‘you’ around.”

“Then you will be forced to try for the both of us, if you wish me to follow your enthusiasm for life. You should not be surprised to hear I have little left in effort to give beyond the task prepared for us by time and fate.”

“I feel much like I’ve been trying for the both of us this entire time, yes.”

“Then, my pitiful emotions were of no use to you. Why are you mourning them?”

“Because I know the strength of them, if you let them.”

“I do not. I only know their _pain_.”

For a long while, they sit in silence beyond the continual rain- and as the wind picks up pace, it drowns them in deafening sound as it pelts the window with heavy sheets of water. “So you’re ready to die.”

Slowly, Xemnas raises a hand to wrap around the index finger of Ansem’s that tugs on the strings of his jacket. Not to stop him, but just to give him attention he apparently craves. “As ready as I can be, I suppose.”

“Can you understand why I won’t accept that?”

“Why you will not accept your destruction, or _mine_?”

“Both.”

“I do not understand why you will not accept my death.”

“It feels like…” A pause to breath, think. Sighing, “Letting myself die,” is the best way he can think of putting it, he thinks. It’s been nice, these past few months. Feeling ‘whole’, complete, despite being, apparently, two entirely different individuals. That drift between them when they’re nearby, a bisected person craving being what they were.

“ _I am not you_.” Xemnas grips Ansem’s offending wrist, prying it away from bothering his jacket.

“I know you’re not.” But Ansem is unmoved, reaching away to avoid Xemnas’ grip, just to lay his hand flat on Xemnas’ chest once more, tapping a finger over the hollow of his heart.

“Then I still do not understand.”

“Because you are the only hope to survive, to be what we _were_.”

Xemnas head tilts just barely in the minutest thought of confusion, laying his arm back down. “You want to be what we were?”

“I want to be… _something_. But a heart cannot live without a body. I will fade into darkness when our forms are shed. You prove now, if you wished it, you would continue on.”

“If Xehanort succeeds, then there will be no where in which to continue.”

“And if he doesn’t?” Ansem exhales a laugh into the seat of the couch, heating the side of Xemnas’ head.

“Then I will live,” Xemnas says so matter-of-factly, despite lamenting he was comfortable dying not five minutes ago.

Ansem just keeps laughing to that, hoarsely, face buried and muffled in the couch as he wraps an arm loosely around Xemnas’ neck and shoulders. “Good. But also, bad. You will he a hollow, empty thing, you seem very intent on that.”

“Perhaps, I would regrow my heart once more.”

“But you would also cast it out once more.”

“Indeed, that is likely. I do not know how to grow a heart that feeds anything but pain, like you do not know how to form a body that lives.”

“A miserable existence, us.”

“The existence we are fated. Seemingly fortunately, you will not live to mourn this experience, no matter the outcome. Not now as the war becomes upon its fated hour, and that we will fall to fuel _his_ destiny.”

“So it seems.”

“Would you scorn me so for simply deciding in this, that I would rather slip into the endless Nothing rather than walk the lighted world, casting out my heart whenever its pale light reveals to torture me?”

“I wouldn’t be there to scorn you.”

“But _now_ , as we lay here?” Xemnas perks his head up just barely, attempting to look at Ansem, but his other is too close to see, just receiving some of those spikey sideburns in his eye.

“I don’t want to die.” Ansem sighs.

Xemnas hangs that thought in restrained silence as he sets his head back down, inhaling slowly and holding as he mull over his response. “It is too late for that.”

Quietly, he muffles himself with Xemnas’ hair as he presses into the side of his head, nosing into those loose, silver strands. “I don’t want _who we were_ to die,” he repeats himself.

Xemnas doesn’t know how to immediately respond to that, simply listening to the soft white noise of the rain, and now Ansem’s rasping breath pushing past his ear. “Then I suppose I will not fade, if fate holds I continue to walk in this lighted world.”

Another pained, quiet laugh, “For my sake?”

“Our sake. But, no, _your_ sake. I do not care either way. So, I will continue for your sake. However, I have a thought,” his sentence creaks at the end, like he thinks he’ll regret saying his thought out loud.

“Yes?” Ansem perks up just enough their dual golden eyes can meet, though it’s too close for either of them to focus clarity in their vision.

“My body is empty.” For now, at least.

“…yes, you’ve made yourself this way.”

“When your replica body is destroyed, your heart is free.”

“To fade into darkness.” Ansem raises an eyebrow, sitting up on his knees enough they can really look at each other.

“My body is empty,” Xemnas repeats.

Ansem opens his mouth to reply a tone of confusion, but closes it again when he stops to think. “… We… we’re too unalike,” he immediately back-tracks despite mourning about how they used to be not five minutes ago. “I do not think I could sit in your chest in torpor like Roxas had in Sora, simply waiting. I am far too eager to live.”

“You said you did not want to fade. You want to continue, being what we were- but what we were is not an option. Instead, be what we _can be_. It is cruel to demand that I continue in pain and suffering while you get to rest comfortably in death.”

Ansem nods, humming a contented tone as he relaxes back into his awkward kneel, draped over the edge of the couch. Reaching his fingers until he finds hair to gently pull, “This is true. Then fair. If you can pull my heart from the abyssal depths of the Ocean when I fall, I promise, I’ll come with you, and we’ll suffer together.”

“Good. I have something akin to a glimmer of hope, then.”

“Don’t think too strongly on that glimmer, less you ruin your own emptiness.”

“I am fairly certain, as you cling to me here like a wanton child, it is _your_ glimmer. May Sora find himself triumphant. How bitter that falls on my tongue, those words. To avoid the pain of existence, however, may Sora find himself slaughtered at the hands of our other, so that we may _sleep_.”

“I will take either answer, at this point. To sleep, or suffer, together.”

\---

Eventually, Ansem succumbs to the pain in his knees and the wholly uncomfortably… soft, nature of this conversation, of this obvious physical affection, and he rises, stretches out his sore joints, offering Xemnas the barest of pets through his hair before leaving.

Xigbar waits about 2 minutes before popping into existence, but thankfully, Xemnas is still too far from ‘distaste’ to be startled or discomforted by his appearance from the void. “Eavesdropping?” He mumbles, eyes watching as the other man silently walks forwards and sits himself across the thighs of Xemnas’ still outstretched legs.

“Didn’t exactly mean too, but yeah. I was gonna come bother you when I saw you were looking a little rough, but now I know why, and then I just listened.”

“So boldly you admit this.”

“See- I was listening,” Xigbar ‘winks’ with his only remaining eye, “I know right now, you don’t care,” and for added proof, he pats Xemnas’ lap he sits upon, and continues receiving no complaint, physical or verbal.

“Indeed.” His eyes glance down to Xigbar just, sitting on his legs. Ahh, it is so nice, to be empty. Feeling nothing is so freeing. “Take advantage as long as you can. While I may not feel the inking of emotion, I will soon _remember_ it, and will act accordingly to your dissidence. Be equally thankful the likelihood of me remembering the exact details of this situation is also slim.” Since he is, technically ‘newly reborn’. Desperately, he is attempting to commit the important details of his chat with Ansem to memory, but with no heart to chain it to, and with his inexistence still raw, he’s perhaps, fucked.

“You bet, buddy. See, though, even though I know you might not remember by next week, I kind of have something I want to tell you,” Xigbar hums, pressing a gloved palm to the bottom of his jaw as his expression stiffens in distaste.

“Go ahead.”

“You, ah, _shouldn’t_ try to hold onto Xehanort’s heart.”

“I do not see why not. It is _my_ heart.”

“No- see, the thing is,” Xigbar reclines on the couch, arms crossed behind his head, “it’s really not. His heart, it’s become, something else. Something _particular_. If you put that thing in you, it’s just gonna take over your being. He’s done it before, he’ll do it again.”

“It is my being,” Xemnas raises the barest eyebrow.

Xigbar returns with an incredulous look, “Really? You really think that? You said it yourself- you’re _not_ the same person.”

“After all this, in a realm of light, we might as well become the same person once more.”

Xigbar squints down at him mockingly, lip pulling into a sneer. “You think his heart will feel nicer than yours? That heart of darkness, rage, hatred? Of Ansem, Seeker of Darkness?”

“As much as my heart was existent, there is more to his heart than you are seeing.” Xemnas knows this well in the fact he was just moping across his chest like a sad puppy.

“And what if you’re wrong?”

“Then, in the end, I would rather he be him, than me be myself. What is your concern, Xigbar? Do you prefer _me_?”

“I-,” he sputters, eye casting to the roof. Throwing up his hands, “Sure, yeah. Maybe I do, prefer you.”

“Do you find me easier to control?” Xemnas adds, looking to him half-lidded and dry.

“Ah-“ he sputters again, eye darting down to meet with his, mouth opening to retort, but closing again as he thinks.

“Are you eager for this to be done?” Xemnas somewhat changes the subject.

“… Yeah. I am,” he nods to himself, relaxing again, “I am more than ready for this to be done.”

“May it go the way you hope it does, regardless to what you had eavesdropped on me and Ansem earlier.”

“If you let Xehanort’s heart live with you after it’s all said and done, it already won’t be going my way.”

“Maybe it will be better than you hope. Maybe we will both fade to nothing, exhausted and done with this life.”

“You are kind of a pain in the ass. Both of you. _All_ of you.”

“That is my only gift in life. Being a pain. Being in pain.”

“Life is pain,” Xigbar rasps, eye squinting shut in distaste.

“Then I will fade, rather than face this fate.” Xemnas closes his eyes, shifting slightly to settle into the couch, letting Xigbar sit on his legs long as he wants, which ends up being a fair bit longer than he expects. Xigbar’s busy disassociating through his thoughts, and a long train of events maybe, finally, coming to a close. What does he care what these two idiots think they’re planning? It’ll be all over soon.

Xigbar can’t help but rasp himself from his thoughts, though. “It’s fun to listen you two still somehow think there’s room to _hope_ for anything.” Hope- the word comes from his mouth bitter and angry.

Xemnas muses his response to Xigbar’s apparent rage silently for a long while, but Xigbar looks to his face, gaze moving as he thinks, and waits for Xemnas’ response. “Xehanort and all our pieces run on a valiant ability to form something from nothing. Plans awry and formed anew after every set back and misfortune. It is our most consistent trait, between us all. Despite all of what we say or do, there is nothing more a _Xehanort_ is capable of, than ‘hope’, even if we would never admit that this is what we are doing.”

Slowly, Xigbar exhales a laugh, shaking his head, but then breaks into nodding, “But you like to say it’s ‘planning’ and intelligence,” he quietly shrills, “not _hoping_ it will go the way you want it to, but you _planned_ it that way.”

“I would never admit this normally- but yes. Plans run entirely on hope, albeit with various levels of knowing consistency. Xehanort’s hope is calculated- but unmistakably, hope. Knowing this now, though, I should offer my disparted heart more leeway. He can only act in his nature. He hopes to survive, and plans this by keeping me alive.”

“What about your nature, hmn? How come you seem to think you’re hopeless now, if a Xehanort is supposed to hope to live?”

“Do I? Am I entirely Xehanort? Must I hope to live? Can I not hope to die instead?”

A silent moment, but Xigbar nods. “Yeah, I guess you can hope whatever you want.”

“Do _you_ hope to live, Xigbar?” Xemnas raises one loose arm to rest a palm on Xigbar’s thigh, tapping gently with an index.

“I have things to do- so yeah. I do hope to live. Something else crossing my mind, though? Hope is useless.” His eye falls to Xemnas’ offending tapping digit, but does not remove it.

“Oh, is it?”

“Nothing you’ve ever ‘hoped’ for has come true, has it?”

Xemnas thinks, and nods. “That is correct, so far. No Xehanort hopes have come to full fruition, something always goes awry.”

“So, then you’ll definitely live, huh.”

“.. Perhaps that is the correct way to think? But that leaves my heart in the dust.”

“Well now- you didn’t hope you’d drag him out of the darkness- you promised. That’s different,” Xigbar waggles a correcting finger, tapping the tip of his nose.

“A promise can deny hope?”

“It could,” he remains incredible vague still, however.

“I do think I liked when you brought and bring out these moments of anciently aged wise-ness, Xigbar. I hope one day I might learn where you have earned this insight.”

“Don’t hope!” Xigbar quietly exclaims, gently whapping Xemnas’ midsection with his hand. “You’ll never know, now.”

A smile creeps to the barest edges of Xemnas’ lips at Xigbar’s continual antics. “Then perhaps I could coerce you into _promising_ to tell me.”

Xigbar’s expression falls flat, “I don’t know what you could give me that’d make me promise something like that.”

“The audacity to claim I have not already given you enough,” Xemnas replies just as dryly.

Scoffing, “You have given me nothing but trouble, heathen, the whole lot of you.”

“I know full and well myself and my counterparts were equally vital to whatever you are doing as we are here to lay it in ruin.”

A moment of silence while Xigbar rubs his frustration off his face with both hands, vigorously and while muffling restrained screaming. Once that moment passes, he mumbles, “Fine, I promise. I _you_ survive, YOU, I will tell you about- what did you call it? Ancient wise-liness?”

“Close enough. I hope then, that I will perish in the coming war.”

“Good boy,” Xigbar laughs, leaning back on the couch as he remains sitting on his apparent throne.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> xemnas, banging on the table, PLANS ARE JUST EDUCATED HOPES


	7. Chapter 7

Xemnas appears in a flash of nothing on a battleground with only one other occupant, Kairi gripped hard in his hand. He throws her down hard at Ansem’s feet, but to her credit, she’s up again in a second, rolling over to standing. Keyblade drawn, she looks between the two of them, trying her best to stifle an immediate response of fear and panic. Without her friends, however, and pinned between two Xehanort’s, she’s not in a good place.

“Things are going awry,” Ansem speaks, leveling a cold gaze on Kairi as she dares to threaten either of them, even just by standing with her keyblade drawn.

“You are surprised?” Xemnas replies, looking towards the towering rock above their already high-standing battlefield. No other Xehanort’s. Their Master and his younger are occupied elsewhere, for now.

Rolling his eyes, Ansem hums, “Not really.”

“What’re you two up to?” Kairi speaks sharply, looking between the two of them; Xemnas faces her, while Ansem floats ominously behind. They’ve both been rejected from their initial fights, it seems, planning to recoup with the youngest for the final of their clash.

“I am curious, Xemnas.” Ansem questions, “Kairi?”

“I am trying something admittedly risky,” Xemnas says dryly, keeping his distance from her while she faces him. She’s not for them to fight, no. She’s a present for their Master- but also, an eager target for Sora’s rage.

“Seems to be how this is going, yes. You there-“ Ansem waves a dismissive hand to Kairi’s battle stance, “Why do you look so ready? Do you really think you could defeat us?” He levels to the ground, approaching her, and she whips around to face him, lips curled into a sneer.

“You could not even squirm from my grasp when caught,” Xemnas pushes her boundaries immediately when she turns, however, and the two pin her between them easily. “What hope do you have?”

“You caught me off guard!” She yelps back, but she still does not dare attack first.

“I might have. But I would think, as a guardian of light, they would have trained you for such a thing. I find you quite… unable, to do the tasks required of you. A shame.” Xemnas speaks low in his throat, leveling his gold, golden gaze on her back.

Her postures loosens just a touch when she realizes neither of them seem interested in attacking first either. “So what, you two just gonna stand there and menace me for a bit? Just tell me what you want.”

“I want Sora to do his job,” Xemnas replies honestly, “and you are the perfect catalyst for his rage. If I cannot have exactly what I want,” in the case of Xion, “then I will have what else is left.”

“Me and Sora could clobber the both of you! He has before.”

“Key word,” Ansem interjects, pointing a finger. “ _He_ has. Not _you_. You don’t seem to be capable of doing much of anything.” Leaning down to look her in the eyes, Ansem crosses his arms crossed over his chest. “What would you like, hmn? Face up to Master Xehanort himself, give him a piece of you mind?”

Kairi hesitates, but huffs in forced amusement, “… yeah! Maybe I will!”

“Hardly,” Xemnas rumbles, leaning down to her ear, “You will not be the one. You cannot be.”

She replies quietly, flinching at him looming over her back, “You don’t know that.”

“I do know. _You_ , know. This is better. To sacrifice yourself, to feed Sora’s rage and pain.”

“How can you be so sure you’ll get your uses our of Sora’s ‘rage’ and ‘pain’?” Kairi laughs, even reaching behind to swat at Xemnas’ too close face. “I think we’ve _more_ than proven your darkness isn’t the stronger force here.”

“No,” Ansem laughs, “we’ve only proven that _Sora_ is the stronger force here. If light was so good and honest, you, Princess of Heart, wouldn’t be here, fawning at our feet.”

“Kairi,” Xemnas stands full again, walking around to stand next to Ansem and face her. “Not that you truly have a choice in the matter, as I will feed you to whatever fire I find necessary without a second thought.” He pauses, just staring, and Kairi catches his eyes soften uncharacteristically. “Would you win in a fight against me? Even alone, without Ansem?” Xemnas gestures loosely to the other man at his side, expression is flat and discerning. He’s isn’t mocking her, but asking an honest question.

To that, she can only stare back up, lips falling into a frown when her gaze snaps down to her feet. Very quietly, Kairi replies, “No.”

“Sora could.” Xemnas speaks softly alongside his strangely gentle expression. “It was more troublesome when he was alongside Riku, but I know, surely, Sora could, alone. He would not hesitate to protect or _avenge_ his friends.”

A long silence lingers as she thinks over Xemnas’ words, and while the disparted Xehanort’s wait for their Master’s arrival. However, Kairi speaks a question in between the silence, “Why does it sound so much like you want Sora to win?”

“That is for you to decide, I suppose,” Xemnas answers with the barest shrug of his shoulders.

She laughs to that, just barely over her breath. “You think you’ll come take over the world once this is all over?”

“To be honest?” Ansem replies, eyes lidding as his arms fall limp to his sides, “I think I just want to take a big long nap, first. But you have to have a world to sleep in, don’t you?”

Her head snaps up to that, confusion crossing her face. “You can’t be serious? I’m going to sacrifice myself so _you_ can have a nap, huh?” She almost sounds like she’s joking with them now, jabbing her keyblade into the ground and resting her palms on the hilt.

“Well, what about Riku?” Ansem says, “I know him very well, I doubt it’s a reach to say he would equally enjoy a nap to have, and a place to have it.”

Again, she laughs to that, raising a hand to rub an errant tear from her eyes. “This sucks, and you suck. When am I going to stop being harassed by old men, huh.”

They both look offended by that, and Ansem speaks, “I am _not_ old.” Which is absolutely a lie, despite his fairly young looking face.

“I know what you look like for real! Under _all that_. You’re an old, sad man who doesn’t know when to quit.”

“Maybe I don’t,” Ansem muses, assuming the role of Xehanort rather than argue with her the minutia of why he is not entirely this. “Someone might just need to teach me the right lesson, I suppose. Or, alternatively, I will finally _win_.”

“I still can’t tell what you want,” her face scrunches in thought, eyes flicking between the two of them.

“I told you already. I think I’d just like to have a nap.” Slowly, Ansem looks over to Xemnas, and in turn his other half slowly nods. Napping could be nice.

“You’re so old, you’re getting tired of yourself, huh?”

Ansem hums a thought before asking, “You ever thought to lock yourself in a room with a younger version of yourself? You might find yourself aggravated quickly. You know _so much more_ than they did.”

Kairi stops to think that over, tapping her chin with an index finger. “No, I _don’t_ think I’d get mad. But, _I_ know how to be understanding,” she waggles that same finger at the both of them. “That’s not something you two know how to do.”

“Mmm.. I might. But, am I oldest?”

“…uh… I guess not?” But, he is. “Well! I hope you learn how to be nicer to yourself, then.”

Ansem laughs low to that, eyebrow furrowed. “You offer me words of comfort? On the cusp of both our deaths?”

“Well, that’s what separates us. I feel bad for you two losers. You’re gonna die sad, not knowing what it’s like to know how to feel bad for someone who doesn’t understand as much as you do.”

Xemnas finally speaks. “You wonder why I find myself appealed by emptiness. I do not feel inconvenienced by any of this.”

“You’re a liar.” Ansem gives him a discerning look.

“Sometimes.”

\---

It’s easy to split the three guardians of light apart for the first half of their three-fold violent clash, but when the youngest Xehanort falls at the hands of Mickey, disappearing back within the time he’d escaped from, Ansem catches himself two against one. Sora occupies Xemnas at the other end of their warring platform, but Ansem is bruised from dealing with Riku himself and stands no chance when Mickey bounces towards him. He’s on the ground already, and with one last blast of Mickey’s Faith, Ansem rolls hard on the ground, overcome with that feeling of _fading_. He has never personally felt that deathly blow before, having never ‘died’ in his timeline, but the memories of his other from this time make him well acquainted with the feeling of dying. It’s hard to stay tough under the stress of it, clutching his chest as he stumbles to at least prop up on one leg. He kneels there, breathing, rasping in discomfort.

As he looks so pained and nearly scared, Riku walks to Ansem’s kneeling self, keyblade pointed to his chest. “Ansem.” Riku speaks low in his throat, voice straining from the pain of battle, but equally to the fact he feels pity at all for the man at his feet. Mickey joins beside him, occasionally looking over to Sora and Xemnas across the grounds and still battling; his eyebrows furrow, but he hesitates to make the killing blow where Riku seems to want to take a moment of reflection. Since Sora seems to be handling himself fine, they both give Ansem a moment to speak.

Ansem just laughs, still clutching his chest, “What a journey you and I have had.”

“You know… It’s kinda strange,” Riku exhales a laugh, expression hardening as he mulls over speaking his thoughts. He eventually does, “Part of me feels bad for you. Like I might miss you.”

Ansem’s eyes lid, head tipping to the side as he sighs and thinks over his time. “Your strength found itself vaster than darkness. I see now, I never did stand a chance...” Looking past Mickey, Ansem opens one eye to see Xemnas opposite to them on this square platform, high above the graveyard. It doesn’t seem like Xemnas notices his other is about to fall to those hands of fate they knew well they were destined to fall to, but in a heartbeat, those opposing gold eyes snap to him. However, Sora is more than capable of beating Xemnas back before he can teleport towards, and at the sound of violence, Mickey turns and heads towards the remaining combatant. Sad to see himself die alone, Ansem hums, “I’ve tried to deny my fate, but despite all my efforts, nothing seems to matter anymore.”

“Ansem,” Riku sighs, expression hard. He’s not worried about the other two and Xemnas, so maybe he’s taking a little more time than he should, but there’s a sinking feeling in his chest he just can’t ignore. Raising his keyblade, he presses the tip to Ansem’s chest, but hesitates.

“What, boy? There’s more to life than this, you know. Go forth, and seek it, on your own.”

Of course, to his pitiful fate, he is the last to fall, but Xemnas isn’t about to go down without a fight. After all they have said and planned, desperate to change the course of time but unable to free himself; if these children and Mickey want him dead, they’re going to _bleed for it._ What breaks his resolve, however, is when a particularly heated Firaga blasts him across the stage, Xemnas’ eyes meet with Ansem’s as he lays there and _fades_. Xemnas had become so occupied with his rage and hatred, thrashing out like a cornered rat, he’d neglected to check if Ansem was still standing. One last, pitiful look, Xemnas feels it hold in time, just for the sake of his eternal punishment, he thinks. However, before he can teleport to assist his mortally wounded other, Sora’s in his face again, and Mickey for good measure. They keep him occupied long enough that Riku completes his solemn task, and it seems as if Ansem simply sat there and let him do it. Unlocking his heart, and Xemnas watches it float into the darkness, blipping away so apathetically as his replica body disintegrates into the darkness. He had worn his old, flawed form to its physical expiration, unlike the replicated Riku.

For a moment, Xemnas is filled with unknowable pain, knocking back Mickey into Sora with enough force they’re both flung skidding into the stone ground. However, when he shiftsteps to the empty space where Ansem kneeled but moments ago, his steam immediately snuffs into nothing. Xemnas stands there, staring at that emptiness, and he looks so momentarily vacant that Riku hesitates to attack him- but unlike Ansem, who appeared to accept his defeat, Xemnas seems easy to flip back into rage. He does not look ready to die like Ansem had. With him at least momentarily unguarded and unready, Xemnas takes Riku’s Dark Firaga head on, tumbling down across the floor with a groan of pain.

Desperately, Xemnas tries to get back on his feet, but it is to no avail. He stumbles there half on his knee while Sora approaches, attempting to get back on his feet, but ends falling to the ground each time. Shouting at him with keyblade still drawn, Sora approaches, “I know you have a heart!”

Clutching his chest, Xemnas feels it. It’s always there. That pain, that pale light flickering in his chest. Connecting with it as he dies, even as it exists somewhere an impossible distance away. With the pain of loss, of being alone, the last to fall again. “So what if I do.”

“How do you feel,” Sora stares down at him, eyebrows knit. He hadn’t seen the way Ansem had fallen, but something about Xemnas feels entirely crippled with loss.

“Empty,” Xemnas laughs, “but impossibly full. Where my companions once stood,” looking to that empty space ahead of Riku, and he turns to face him as Xemnas somewhat beckons him. “And now, I have _nothing_. My only surge of emotions, in all my years, has always been loneliness. See, how cruel you are to expect that I should care for this. A heart is just pain.”

“Pain is being human, Xemnas,” Sora stops at his decaying body, sat on the ground, but Xemnas doesn’t dare look up to his fate. His destruction, looming at the hands of someone who could not possibly understand this pain.

“Is that so,” Xemnas sighs, leaning heavy to the side to stare at that empty space beside Riku, where Ansem was. His heart. Weakly, he reaches past them, and for the space where his heart once resided, fingers flexing. “It must take, incredible strength.”

With his pale light barely holding on as it exists normally, Xemnas body fades without prompting, leaving Riku, Sora, and Mickey with the dust.

\----

A world glitters with rippling water beneath and clouds overhead, endlessly in either direction. A place where aimless, forgotten hearts gather and wait for something, anything. An empty place with the echoes of unheard whispers to one another.

A pale light barely shifts above the waters surface, grumbling to itself so quietly, no other of the brighter lights above it seem to pay it any mind. They chatter amongst themselves, the chatter of forgotten children, lovers, friends. But this pale light has no one to talk to. Its comrades are elsewhere. It is waiting to be allowed to come home again, but laments to itself as it wanders.

“Hello?” A soft voice breaks above the others, but it does not interrupt them. Having never been spoken too before, in its several visits to this bright place, the pale light does not immediately respond. It does, however, stop in confusion, looking around. “What are you doing?” The bright light above continues to speak.

“Waiting,” it responds, its voice too weak to register audibly.

She ‘hears’ him, however, in the same way she hears the whispers around. Dwarfing it in size, her star-shaped form lowers to catch the pale lights attention, itself a single speck of light with no real shape. “That’s some pretty aggressive waiting.”

“I am mad.” It’s voice is deep, but flat and toneless.

“I can tell. Are you mad at who you’re waiting for?”

“Yes.”

“Well, that’s no way to be,” she tries to joke at it, but it doesn’t seem to understand her humor.

“I know no other way.”

“Hmmn… Have you been here before?”

“Yes.” She looks ready to leave it alone in its anger, humming a low tone, but he decides he likes receiving attention. “Have you?” He questions back, almost timidly.

She offers him a quiet laugh, elated that this sad, pale light would return her conversation. “I haven’t! It’s a little strange.”

“It is strange that you talk,” he speaks softly, a lilt coming to his dead voice.

“Everyone is talking.” Slowly, she wanders away from the crowd, and the little pale light follows.

“They are not. They are whispering.”

“.. Is that different?”

“If you stay here, you will learn.”

“Hah- well, I’m hoping I _won’t_ stay here.” They travel further from the crowd, so she can hear him better. Despite his deep voice, it comes so incredibly quiet resonating from his tiny form.

“Do you have somewhere to live?”

“I think so! A friend of mine told me that he’s helping my body come together again, back home.”

“Do you love your body?” He questions quietly, pained.

“I do! Do you?”

“No.”

“Oh...” She stops momentarily, but the pale light does not seem to be offended. “Why not?”

“It does not repay the feeling. Why would I?”

“So… you’re waiting for your body, but you don’t even want to be with it?”

“It is not that simple. I desire to be with it, even if it may never accept me.”

“You are a very dedicated heart, for being so small and so sad.”

“I know not else of what to do. I cannot stay here. It is too empty.”

“It’s sure is. I also pretty eager to leave.”

A silence lingers as the pale light grumbles to himself, obviously distressed by something. She hums a ‘hmn?’ to him to explain; “I may regret to impart this worry on you, stranger- but my body… I fear it will not return from the dive it has taken this time.”

“Oh no? What happened?”

“It sunk deep, deep beneath the ocean, in search of someone lost. I wait in hopes to guide it and the lost back to the realm of light- but I am not there.”

“Oh no! I mean… this is... _kind of_ in the realm of light.”

“No; despite its bright skies, this place is in between neither light or dark. Hearts will leave to find their lost bodies, but never have I seen a body come for a lost heart.”

“… I have! Really recently!”

“Really? Please, tell me who.”

“Uh… My friend, who promised to help my body! His name is Sora.”

The pale light momentarily stops and shivers, “That name seems familiar- but I hold so little of myself, I know not why.”

“Memory not so good, huh?”

“Not here, not now. Not when I am weak and disparted.”

“Well… You need to get back to the realm of light, right? To help your body?”

“Indeed.”

“Well, I am super sure my body will be back, and I’ll head home to be with her. And since you seem so sad… I _bet_ I could drag you along with me.”

Slowly, the pale light raises itself to her height, his form sputtering in thought. “… As much as you, _could_ , do this. You should find no obligation to me, my sadness or otherwise.”

“I mean, I wouldn’t call it ‘obligation’, but there’s no harm in doing nice things for people.”

“You do not know who I am.”

“I have a couple good guesses- and I still stand by what I’ve offered. The place I live- it’s really close to the realm of darkness, too, so if your body and his friend are lost down there, they’ll be able to find you easier.”

“I would be a fool to dismiss an offer such as this. With the miserable strength my light has to offer you thankfulness, please allow me to come with you as you leave. If this comes, of course. You could be wrong.”

“I could be! And then I guess we’ll just hang out here for a while.”

“I will accept this fate if it comes. Another warning for you, however. In my experience, memories of this place fall unchained as you leave it. You may forget why you have let me cling to you as you return.”

“I’m pretty good at memory, honestly- it’s kind of my thing, so I’m not too worried about it. Even if I do forget, I won’t… ‘forget’. I’ll remember long enough to stuff you somewhere nice and bright to sleep off your days until your body returns.”

“I will try to do the best with your offering as I can.”


	8. Chapter 8

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> https://youtu.be/keMBtyjYUPQ

It’s dark in here, Xemnas thinks. Actually dark, though. His eyes coated with black, inky water, filling his lungs with each forced breath. Something is beneath his feet as he stands, submerged. I made a promise. I will not fade. Craning his neck upwards, Xemnas wills himself upwards, grasping to where emptiness beyond the darkness lies. For a long while, the surface beneath his feet doesn’t seem interested in listening to his whims, but as Xemnas refuses to give in, slowly, the water recedes in thick, drolling waves, dripping down his body as he stands and _breaths._

Beneath him, his heart’s station is a pitiful wreck of blisteringly white shards. Not to be mistaken for light- but in the darkness, the nothing feels more white than it does black. It cracks beneath Xemnas feet, each step destroying what little he had left, or perhaps ever had. It drowns in darkness, the inky ocean frothing between the cracks where Xemnas had just barely willed it above the endless abyss. A chorus chimes in his ears, but it is broken, distorted. They screech off key, repeating and repeating their broken song to his heart. A bell rings in an impossible time, ushering him to destruction.

It is willed that you must sleep, now. But he presses a foot to a sorrowful shard of his neglected heart, and it stays in place beneath his weight. As he wills is, Xemnas will continue. He made a promise. Do you not understand what a promise means? It is not the folly of hope- it is an unbreakable connection. He hadn’t understood when he first spoke it- but Xemnas swears he understands now. Please understand, you tolling bell and broken song, that I made a promise.

His heart is above the ocean as far as it can be- which is better than nothing, Xemnas supposes. If he keeps it above, he can keep _himself_ above, no matter if it is miles or inches from the surface.

Ansem, however, is beneath the frothing, inky waters. He said so much himself, and where else would he be. Find somewhere safe to sleep, heart, while I sink beneath to search. Your pale light may lead me back from oblivion.

Each step is glass beneath his feet, creaking and pressing sharp edges into his skin in bleeding lines, but Xemnas continues to the edge of his station as broken shards continue to hold his weight. Weakly, his amber eyes look into the abyss of darkness, that endless ocean he’s seen before, but never from _this side_. Could he already be infinitely lost in there yet? How long has Xemnas spent willing himself out of this ocean? It could be minutes, it could be centuries. He’d never know.

Ansem?

...

...

_Yes?_

Xemnas tips a bare foot into the water, darkness sinking into the wounds beneath, but he does not hesitate to step in, immediately sinking into the waters. His heart, however, stays above, a beacon for him later. Or so he hopes. He can not tell, without his will, if it will immediately sink alongside him. Again, it is impossible for Xemnas to gauge how long he falls for, as his only focus is the thought that he’d heard a reply some time ago. Weakly reaching out his hand into the darkness, but nothing reaches back.

You promised. A cruel fate, you would leave me in, to walk the world alone again. I will sooner sink into darkness than face this.

...

_Did I promise?_

Maybe not. But I feel like you should have.

...

_What did I promise? I can’t remember._

That you might walk with me.

...

_Who are you?_

You, once, a long time ago.

_Oh. Are you lonely?_

I am.

_Does it have to be me?_

Not necessarily. But I would like it to be you.

_That seems very sweet of you. I don’t feel like I deserve such kindness._

Maybe you do not. Neither do I. But here we are.

_Where is here?_

Somewhere cold and dark.

_Seems like an awful place to sleep, if you ask me._

Then awaken with me.

Xemnas’ hand is still outstretched, for ages and ages as a conversation, perhaps, goes by. Time passes so irregularly, jumping between moments words _aren’t_ spoken- and suddenly in a expanse of silent nothing, a hand wraps around his wrist; instinctively, Xemnas pulls back. He heaves the last of his strength, desperately, tugging and tugging, legs kicking through the inky ocean until as suddenly as the hand has grasped his arm, cold air hits his lungs as his face pushes past the surface of darkness.

Xemnas blinks water out of his eyes until he’s greeted with the vision of a familiar place- not his heart, but somewhere physical, where his body manifests itself once more. He’s still gripped hard around what he can only hope is what he wants, but the unseen figure grasps just as hard, so Xemnas isn’t worried about dropping it as he flails towards the shoreline.

The first hit of black sand beneath his fingers has Xemnas exhaling a desperate sigh of relief, and again as he gets it under his legs. He never manages to stand, but doesn’t necessarily need to, flipping onto his back to drag himself with his legs onto the shore. After a thought, he looks down to what is gripped in his hand, and sure enough, a figure lays there, barely existent. Ansem’s body is a mass of inky blackness, long tendrils from his head like antenna whipping in the air, but Xemnas knows it’s him despite the lack of human seeming form. “Get off,” Xemnas rasps, whacking at the darkness ineffectually, tugging Ansem onto his outstretched legs and lap. He sits up on his ass to cradle the blackened form, feeling out on his chest to see if his heart remains undevoured. Though Ansem is assuming the form of a neo shadow, Xemnas can feel out his heart beneath. He swears it’s still there- and somehow, miraculous, not entirely devoured by darkness. How long as it been?

Well, now what does he do. Xemnas’ body seems in no condition do to anything about housing a damaged heart, neither his own or Ansem’s pitifully beating beneath his palm. After all that work, he simply cannot let it end here, but for a long while, he knows nothing of what to do. As they sit there in the darkness, unprotected, Xemnas already starts to feel his memory and sense of mind drift away while Ansem sleeps gently in his lap, still clutched to each other’s arm.

\---

“I feel like I’ve left something behind,” Xehanort muses as they blink through the Final World.

“You’re just trying to procrastinate,” Eraqus replies, stifling a laugh with his sleeve. He hasn’t let go of Xehanort’s hand; he’s not getting out of this one.

“No, I swear,” the other boy muses, pressing his palm to his chin. “Somehow, I feel like there’s still some ‘me’ somewhere.”

“That’s probably not good.”

“It’s definitely not good.”

“Maybe if you hadn’t left so many angry pieces everywhere…” Eraqus scolds him, leaning down to give him a good, playful glare.

“Shh! Let me think for a minute,” Xehanort’s gaze falls vacant as he focuses through himself, seeing if he can’t pinpoint whatever anomaly remains in existence.

“I’m pretty sure all of them fell in the war.” He has the vaguest recollection of Terra’s thoughts on the matter, from where they shared for that short time his student had obtained his freedom.

“They’ve fallen before. They notoriously rise again,” Xehanort frowns.

“Just like their dad, huh.”

“… I don’t want to admit to being a ‘dad’, but sure.” A long silence falls as Eraqus lets Xehanort focus, eyes falling soft on him as he waits. “… Definitely, there..” Xehanort mumbles, looking far off to the side. “… in the realm of darkness, of course. One of my pieces somehow pulled itself out of the Ocean.”

“Hmnn…” Eraqus hums, “We should go fix that before we leave.”

“I don’t know,” Xehanort replies, eyebrows knitting, a frown crossing the edges of his lips. “If he’s so desperate to live, maybe I should give him a chance. It’s that… it’s a piece of _Terra_ , honestly.”

Eraqus tilts his head, “A piece of Terra? But you said it was you?”

“It was that piece of Terra I had uh… you know.. stole,” Xehanort mumbles, lips pursing.

“So, maybe _a little_ Terra. But Terra did some terrible things influenced by darkness. Are you so sure this piece is free of your old influence?”

“I’m _not_ so sure, no.”

“Then, I think we have a little time still, we can pull in where you’re connected to him, and then we can see.”

“I don’t know if I have it in me to destroy him if he isn’t free,” Xehanort sighs, eyes drifting to the glistering floor beneath them.

Eraqus frowns to that, tilting down to look Xehanort in his downtrodden eyes. “It’ll be fine. If it comes out to the worse, I’ll-… I’ll figure it out, ok?”

“You mean you’ll destroy him,” Xehanort mumbles back.

“… Xehanort, come on.”

He’s, at the very least, in an incredibly easy place to find. Without physical forms, and with the overwhelming light of the Final World blinking behind them, Xehanort looks down in despair at not one, but _two_ of his shards laying there, decaying in the sand. The second has been shrouded in darkness, unable to communicate with ‘himself’, but Xehanort knows well that is ‘his’ heart down there. Xemnas might be redeemable in the parts of him that are Terra, but no single piece of Xehanort should be left in this universe when him and Eraqus finally depart.

Xemnas doesn’t have the effort to look up at the rays of light that shine down from the sky, until Ansem’s hollow yellow eyes flick open. He follows his other’s line of sight to two blots of figures in that glimmer above them, but there’s no cognizant sense of himself that recognizes them. He barely understands what is happening anymore.

_Xehanort._

A voice rattles in their heads- only in each piece of Xehanort, though; Eraqus is left in silence. Xehanort replies, however, “Yes?”

“Yes? What?” Eraqus questions.

“Shh, no, not you, that heart- it’s speaking to me. Now that we’re close enough.” Slowly the two of them float down to the shoreline, looking over the sad sight. Xemnas squints between the both of them, but his eyes are vacant and hollow. Blinking slowly, he glances down to the blackened figure in his lap. Absentmindedly, he releases Ansem’s hand, running his un-clutched hand over his head, momentarily running fingers over his eyes.

_Shouldn’t you be gone by now._

“Shouldn’t you?”

_Much as you seem to be denying your departure, someone denies me the fate of a death steeped in darkness._

Xehanort looks to Eraqus, expression hardened. “I will head to the death I am owed soon. You two- you seem to be interested in taking some effort towards at living.”

_Me? No, now… now, I’d sooner sleep. But him, yes, he is interested in experiencing a life without torment._

“Do you trust him to know how to live such a life?”

_He will need help, but I think he could, yes._

“Would you help him?”

_I don’t know that yet. Here, as I remain steeping in pain, darkness, hatred. I am agonized beyond belief._

“You are, yes. A Heartless.” Xehanort speaks quietly, reaching down with flexing fingers towards the black figure ahead of where they stand.

Eraqus interjects, even though he is missing half the conversation. “We can free his heart.”

“I know not if my old keyblade will heed my call. I have given it to someone else- and perhaps returned it to its original owner.”

“What about the first one you had, huh?” Eraqus chuckles, reaching a hand forwards- and in a flash, a Starlight appears in his grasp. It is quite battle-worn, rusted and chipped, but it holds strong.

“Ah… I doubt too I have the strength in my heart to ask it to come to me,” Xehanort speaks weakly in reply.

With a waggle of his eyebrows, Eraqus laughs, “Good thing I’m here there.”

“Isn’t that often the case,” Xehanort mumbles, giving him a dry look.

Eraqus, however, is occupied with releasing the Heartless laying there beneath them. Xemnas seems defensive at first, raising up on his, but Ansem reaches up weakly with clawed digits. He rests his palm beneath Xemnas’ jaw in feigning comfort, scratching delicately beneath his ear until his body relaxes again. Eraqus presses the tip of his old blade to Ansem’s chest, and the grey pulse beneath it rattles in discomfort. “You really got yourself in there deep, huh,” he mumbles to himself, struggling even as Ansem offers himself willingly. He thrashes in pain, but only sinks his claws into the sand beneath them.

_I have only known this darkness_

“He can’t hear you,” Xehanort huffs, stepping into the ground beside them. Since Eraqus is busy trying to free Ansem’s heart from darkness, Xehanort will find himself busy musing around Xemnas’ head. “I know, it hurts. Everything hurts, all the time, and it never stops hurting. You two would be better off staying here and sleeping.”

“Xehanort- Don’t say that!” Eraqus objects, “We’re supposed to be _helping_ , aren’t we.”

“This doesn’t look or feel like it’s helping,” Xehanort speaks lowly, weaving his hands into Xemnas’ hair as he focuses to peruse his memory. There’s no heart in here, only a bundle of unchained thoughts rattling about an over-strained body, so it’s easy for him to fumble around where Xemnas does nothing to deny his eldest piece access.

Very weakly, Xemnas finally speaks, “You are helping. Please help.”

Both Xehanort and Eraqus’ expressions warp to the utmost pity to that, and with one last heave, Eraqus rips the fading heart from the darkness. Across Xemnas’ lap, the writhing figure suddenly ceases, and melts back into the ocean. Without prompting, Xemnas reaches for the hearts balanced on Eraqus’ blade, stealing it immediately. “Well, he has it now, apparently,” Eraqus muses, an eyebrow raised in confusion. Despite still being very much in the realm of darkness, the free heart doesn’t seem to be attracting any other heartless. It’s eerily quiet beyond the water lapping at their feet.

Xehanort hums, still plucking loose memories from Xemnas’ head. “You did always want a heart. Is this the heart you wanted?”

“Yes.” Xemnas sits there, cradling it in his arms as he wills the energy to sit up.

“I can’t let you have it,” Xehanort mumbles.

“I need it.”

Eraqus interjects, “What if it makes you be a bad person?”

“It will not.”

“How can you be so sure,” Eraqus levels his hands on his hips, giving him the best ‘dad’ stare-down despite currently wearing the body of a young boy.

“… I promise.” Xemnas repeats this mantra, still cradling the heart in his arms, pressed to his chest. “I have nothing else left. You must leave me with something.”

Eraqus rubs out his frustration on his face, but when he looks again, Xehanort looks awfully calm. “I hate to say it, Xehanort, but it’s your call.”

“I know,” he replies quietly, reaching to cusp Xemnas’ face in his hand. “You _promise,_ you’ll do better than me.”

Xemnas is scarcely aware of who these two people are. “I promise,” he replies regardless, out of desperation, but also knowing.

Xehanort reaches down to that heart in Xemnas’ arms, and he flinches in fear. Fingers wrap around the edges of it, and equally it shivers in response, but in a shock of magic, the heart studders to a stop. “There. I cast confuse; I’m hoping that gives you enough time to get your bearings straight. Where you’ll go from here, though, I don’t know.” With Ansem’s heart still in his grip, Xehanort seals the deal by pressing it into Xemnas’ chest.

It’s incredibly uncomfortable, but Xemnas wills himself to stand, the two beside him offering hands to steady him. “Suppose I’ll go home now,” Xemnas muses, staring off past the ocean.

“Where’s home, huh?” Eraqus questions.

“I’m not sure yet. But someone’s still waiting for me. Once I find him, we’ll be us again, and maybe we’ll be me.” His eyes are growing hazey, though, immediate memory blinking out faster than he can make them. Ansem’s heart is bleeding confusion, and Xemnas can barely will himself to follow the glimmer of his far off light, beaconing him to come home.

Over the Destiny Island skies, in the light of the coming morning, a streak of black falls from the sky.


End file.
